Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched a boat-borne bomb attack against a commercial ship in the Red Sea, authorities said, the latest escalation despite a U.S.-led campaign trying to protect the vital waterway.

The use of a boat loaded with explosives raised the specter of 2000's USS Cole attack, a suicide assault by al-Qaida on the warship when it was at port in Aden, killing 17 on board. Associated Press journalists saw the Cole in the Red Sea on Wednesday, now taking part in the U.S. campaign while visiting one of her sister ships, the USS Laboon.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed Wednesday to keep pressing to seal a Gaza ceasefire deal, saying that not all Hamas demands were acceptable but voicing hope that gaps could be closed.

Consulting with key mediator Qatar on the Hamas response to President Joe Biden's plan, Blinken said Hamas could have given a "clear and simple yes" but voiced guarded hope for moving forward.

At least 41 people died when a fire swept through a building that housed workers in Kuwait early Wednesday, and officials said the blaze appeared to be linked to code violations.

Interior Minister Sheikh Fahad Al-Yousuf Al-Sabah confirmed the toll and ordered the arrest of the building's owner during a visit to the site, local media reported.

A U.N. investigation concluded on Wednesday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza, including that of "extermination", while saying Israeli and Palestinian armed groups have both committed war crimes.

The independent Commission of Inquiry's report is the United Nations' first in-depth investigation into the events of the war that erupted on October 7.

Hamas said Tuesday that it gave mediators its reply to the U.S.-backed proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, seeking some "amendments" on the deal. It appeared the reply was short of an outright acceptance that the United States has been pushing for but kept negotiations alive over an elusive halt to the eight-month war.

The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt — who have been key mediators alongside the United States — confirmed that they had received Hamas' response and said mediators were studying it.

The resignation of a senior member of Israel's war Cabinet was a dramatic show of distrust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategy for the eight-month-old war with Hamas.

But the departure of Benny Gantz does not immediately appear to threaten Netanyahu, who still controls a majority coalition in parliament.

Hamas says one of its commanders in the occupied West Bank was killed in a clash with Israeli forces.

In a statement released late Monday, Hamas said Mohammed Jaber Abdo was killed along with three other fighters in a village near Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered. It said Abdo had spent 20 years in Israeli prisons.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council's vote in favor of a U.S.-backed proposal for a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release made it "as clear as it possibly could be" that the world supports the plan, as he again called on Hamas to accept it.

"Everyone's vote is in, except for one vote, and that's Hamas," Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv after meeting with Israeli officials. He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reaffirmed his commitment to the proposal when they met late Monday.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said they had arrested members of an "American-Israeli spy network" days after detaining at least 11 U.N. staffers along with others from aid organizations.

Maj. Gen. Abdulhakim al-Khayewani, head of the Houthis' intelligence agency, announced the arrests, saying the spy network had first operated out of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa. Then after it was closed in 2015 following the Houthi takeover of the capital Sanaa and northern Yemen, they continued "their subversive agenda under the cover of international and UN organizations," he said.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that four soldiers had been killed in fighting in southern Gaza the previous day, more than eight months into its war against Hamas militants.

The soldiers were "killed in fighting in south Gaza" on Monday, the military said in a statement, without elaborating on the circumstances of their deaths.