The Israeli military said Saturday it had conducted an air strike targeting an alleged Islamic Jihad militant in central Gaza, despite a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked Qatar's emir and prime minister for being a "big factor" in helping secure a Gaza ceasefire deal, during a refueling stop on his way to Asia.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that more countries are ready to normalize relations with Israel but the decision would await a broader regional agreement.

The United States named a veteran diplomat as the civilian lead in a body monitoring the Gaza ceasefire, seeking to push forward a durable end to the war.

Israeli military officials have warned that they are still not prepared to enter a multi-front war without an urgent budget increase to rebuild their forces and compensate for weapons shortages, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Spain's top criminal court said Friday it had opened an investigation for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity or genocide into executives at the steelmaker Sidenor for trading with an Israeli arms company.

Spain, one of the fiercest critics of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, said it had stopped exchanging weapons with the country after the conflict started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio toured a U.S.-led coordination center in southern Israel Friday, as the Trump administration pushed forward with plans to set up an international security force in Gaza and shore up a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Rubio was the latest in a series of high-level U.S. officials to visit the civilian military coordination center and the country. U.S. Vice President JD Vance was there earlier this week where he announced its opening, and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, were also in Israel.

Iraq is weeks away from parliamentary elections that will set the country's course during one of the Middle East's most delicate moments in years.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday he did not believe that Israel would annex the West Bank, playing down this week's Knesset vote to advance two bills.

Rubio said Israeli lawmakers had held the vote as a political stunt to embarrass U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

President Donald Trump is suggesting he could call on Israel to release imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, the most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader, as the United States aims to fill a leadership vacuum in postwar Gaza.

Trump, in an interview published Thursday, said he has discussed the potential for Barghouti's release with White House aides.