It takes a while but slowly the children gathered around volunteer entertainer Ruaa Hassuna in a Gaza camp start clapping along as her music offers some respite from the horrors around them.
Smiles light up the faces of the children, huddled amid the tents outside the south Gaza town of Rafah which shelter hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by more than two months of relentless Israeli bombardment.
Hopes rose Wednesday that Israel and Hamas may be inching toward another truce and hostage-release deal in the Gaza war, following talks in Europe and a visit to Egypt by the head of the Palestinian militant group.
While some talked of a truce, fighting raged and Gaza's Hamas government said the death toll in the Palestinian territory reached 20,000.
Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there can be no Gaza ceasefire until Hamas militants are destroyed, but Washington expressed hope the truce talks can bring results.
A UN Security Council vote on a much-delayed resolution calling for a pause to the Israel-Hamas war was postponed again Wednesday as members wrangled over wording while the death toll in Gaza continued climbing.
The debate at the UN's Manhattan headquarters came against a backdrop of deteriorating conditions in Gaza, with a senior UN official saying Israel's steps to allow in aid were "far short" of mounting need.
The head of Hamas was due in Egypt on Wednesday for talks on a ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel said it was willing to agree to another pause in exchange for more hostages.
International pressure is mounting for a new truce that could ramp up aid to the besieged Palestinian territory, with the United Nations due to vote on calling for a ceasefire.
Hamas sources said Wednesday at least 11 people had been killed overnight in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip.
The United States has charged an Iranian and a Chinese national with allegedly supplying microelectronics to Iran for use in the drone program of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Hossein Hatefi Ardakani and Gary Lam, also known as Lin Jinghe, are accused in a September 2020 indictment unsealed on Tuesday with conspiring to illegally purchase and export US-made dual-use microelectronics to Iran.
The Israeli army said Tuesday it had demolished the family home of a Palestinian man accused of killing two Israelis -- a father and his son -- at a car wash in the occupied West Bank.
Police arrested Osama Bani Fadl in November after a months-long hunt, accusing him of killing Shay Silas Nigrekar and Aviad Nir in the Palestinian town of Huwara in August.
The two Israeli men were gunned down when they were at a car wash, in an attack that rocked the territory at the time.
Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi refused to appear on Tuesday at her first trial hearing since the award ceremony, describing the court as a "slaughterhouse", her family said.
Mohammadi, whose family accepted the 2023 prize in Oslo on her behalf on December 10, said the revolutionary court where she is being tried is responsible for ordering death sentences for young Iranians.
The UN Security Council struggled to find a unified voice Tuesday on pausing the Israel-Hamas war as aid efforts neared collapse and global economic fallout spread.
With calls growing for a new truce, Qatar-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh is to visit Egypt on Wednesday for talks on a ceasefire in Gaza and a prisoner exchange with Israel, a source close to the Islamist group said.
In what they say is a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza, Yemen's Huthi rebels have repeatedly fired missiles and drones towards cargo ships in the Red Sea.
The United States pushed Tuesday to build up a multinational naval task force to protect a key global shipping lane from Yemen's Huthi rebels, who pledged to keep up their attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea.
The Iran-backed Huthis say their missile and drone strikes on passing container ships are in support of Palestinians in the Gaza war raging between Israel and militant group Hamas since October 7.
Before war broke out in Gaza, Mahmud al-Daoudi could never have imagined the radio sets gathering dust in his shop would be in such high demand, offering his customers a precious link with the outside world.
Power cuts have long been a part of everyday life, but the besieged territory's 2.4 million people are now enduring long blackouts after Israel cut off electricity and fuel supplies.
Its relentless assault has killed more than 19,450 Gazans, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
