Washington said Thursday it was "deeply concerned" about a strike on a Jordanian military hospital in Gaza that wounded seven people, underscoring its opposition to air strikes on health facilities.

"We are deeply concerned that they were injured," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, praising the Jordanian government's "incredible work establishing this field hospital" and saying its work most continue.

Miller did not condemn the strike nor did he say who was responsible.

US President Joe Biden should embrace a "historic opportunity" and deliver a peace plan between warring Israelis and Palestinians, but it must be a lasting political solution that "undermines extremists" on both sides, a group of independent global leaders said Thursday.

The leaders, known as The Elders, called on Biden in an open letter to offer "a vision for peace."

Palestine began their quest for a place at the 2026 World Cup with a goalless draw against Lebanon in their Group I World Cup qualifier in Sharjah on Thursday.

The match was played at Khalid Bin Mohammed Stadium in Sharjah because of a one-match stadium ban on ‘host’ Lebanon following unruly scenes in their qualifier against Syria in Beirut last year.

British newspaper The Guardian has removed from its website a 21-year-old message written by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, after it was shared several million times on social media.

Bin Laden's "Letter to America" began being shared on TikTok on Tuesday, sparking a fierce debate about US backing for Israel in its current war against Hamas.

Bin Laden was the mastermind of the September 11 attacks 22 years ago that killed nearly 3,000 people by crashing passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

Hundreds of Jews and Arabs joined relatives of Israeli-Canadian peace activist Vivian Silver Thursday to pay tribute to an "extraordinary woman" and "beacon of hope" who was murdered by Hamas militants on October 7.

They gathered at Gezer kibbutz in central Israel where the 74-year-old had lived in the 1970s. When the Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel last month, Silver was living in Beeri kibbutz near the Gaza border.

Mya Pikoos used to leave the door of her kibbutz home in northern Israel unlocked. Now she sleeps with a commando knife and pepper spray under her pillow.

Kibbutz Dan, typically home to around 850 people, has become a ghost town since the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7.

The lanes are lined with citrus trees laden with ripe and unpicked fruit. Untended cats prowl by day, and jackals and boars roam the vacant lots at night.

The United Arab Emirates inaugurated on Thursday one of the world's biggest solar plants, two weeks before the oil-rich Gulf state hosts UN climate talks.

The Al Dhafra plant, south of the capital Abu Dhabi, stretches over 21 square kilometres (eight square miles) of desert, an area about one-fifth the size of Paris.

Its rows of photovoltaic panels rotate to follow the sun and are kept clear of sand and dust by robotic cleaning modules.

Israeli forces were searching building to building at Gaza's main hospital Thursday as Hamas said the military had "destroyed" parts of the compound where concern has mounted for Palestinians trapped inside.

Soldiers raided Al-Shifa since early Wednesday in the hunt for a command centre they say the militants built below the complex, a charge denied by Hamas and managers at the hospital which has become a focal point of the war.

Bartender Richard Alam has poured hardly any drinks at his pub in Lebanon's seaside city of Byblos, where once-busy streets have emptied of customers scared by border tensions during the Israel-Hamas war.

"I opened this whiskey bottle two weeks ago and it still isn't empty," said Alam, 19, standing behind his empty bar in the coastal city, home to a World Heritage site north of Beirut.

"Before, we would go through a bottle every day or every other day," he told AFP.

An Israeli soldier died Thursday after being shot in an attack near Jerusalem that was claimed by the armed wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In a statement, the Israeli army identified the soldier as Avraham Fetena, 20, saying he was wounded when three gunmen attacked a checkpoint at the entrance to a tunnel linking the occupied West Bank with Jerusalem.

Another five Israeli security personnel were also wounded, with Israeli police shooting dead all three assailants.