With Gaza largely in ruins after more than 10 months of war, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry has struggled to count the death toll, which on Thursday surpassed 40,000.

Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the daily figures put out by the ministry and US President Joe Biden did so too in the early stages of the war.

But several United Nations agencies that operate in Gaza have said the figures are credible and they are frequently cited by international organisations.

- Data collection -

International mediators made a new bid Thursday to push Israel and Hamas toward a ceasefire in their war that the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said has now killed more than 40,000 people.

Talks opened in Qatar's capital amid a wider international diplomatic bid to ease tensions that have spiked since the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

An Israeli delegation attended the Doha talks, which also involved US Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns.

At least 1.4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied access to secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, with the future of an entire generation now "in jeopardy", the United Nations' cultural agency said Thursday.

Access to primary education has also fallen sharply, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, UNESCO said in a statement as the Taliban authorities marked three years since retaking Afghanistan on August 15, 2021.

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes killed two people in the country's south on Wednesday, with Hezbollah announcing the deaths of two of its fighters, the latest cross-border violence amid fears of a full-blown regional war.

Hezbollah has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army since the Palestinian militant group Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan had just collected the birth certificates of his three-day-old twins when he received the news: his Gaza apartment had been bombed, killing the babies and their mother.

Footage of a distraught Abu al-Qumsan, weeping and falling as he still holds the birth certificates, has been widely circulated on social media, becoming the latest emblem of the devastating toll of the war in the Palestinian territory.

"I was in the hospital at the time when the house was targeted," he says, tears streaming down his face.

Qatar is set to host Gaza ceasefire talks on Thursday, seeking a so-far elusive agreement that the United States hopes would stop Iran striking Israel and avert a wider war.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have invited Israel and Hamas for negotiations aimed at ending fighting that the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says has killed nearly 40,000 people in the Palestinian territory.

The talks will be held in the Qatari capital Doha, a source close to Hamas and a second source close to the negotiations said Wednesday.

Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein warned Wednesday the clock was ticking for a Gaza ceasefire that could also help end 10 months of cross-border exchanges between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel.

His Lebanon trip comes a day before ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel are set to resume, with top diplomats scrambling to avert all-out war after Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge for recent high-profile killings.

An Israeli museum that hid some of its most valuable artworks after the October 7 attack has now stashed away even more, fearing a strike by Iran.

Paintings by Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt are among the treasures moved by Tel Aviv Museum of Art to the "safe" -- a secured basement meant to shield them from missiles.

Museum staff moved many of the masterpieces at the start of the Gaza war, which was triggered by the Palestinian group Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7.

US President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday approved more than $20 billion in new weapons sales to Israel, brushing aside pressure from rights activists to stop arms deliveries over the death toll in Gaza.

The sale comes as Biden has pressed Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire after 10 months of bloodshed, although the weapons would take years to reach Israel.

In a notification to Congress, the State Department said it had approved a sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets to Israel for $18.82 billion.

A far-right Israeli minister drew international condemnation Tuesday by praying with thousands of Jews at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in annexed east Jerusalem, defying a ban on Jewish prayer at the flashpoint site.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has often ignored the Israeli government's longstanding ban, vowed to "defeat Hamas" in Gaza in a video he filmed during his visit.