By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) -The Palestinian Authority said on Wednesday it is prepared to operate the Gaza-side of a key crossing for aid between Egypt and Gaza.
"Now we are ready to engage again, and we have notified all parties that we are ready to operate the Rafah crossing," said Mohammad Shtayyeh, special envoy to President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel's defence minister threatened Wednesday to resume fighting if Hamas does not honour the terms of a US-backed ceasefire that halted the war in Gaza.
The statement from Defence Minister Israel Katz's office came after Hamas handed over the remains of two more deceased hostages, and said it would be unable to retrieve any more bodies from the ruins of Gaza without specialised equipment.
ROME (Reuters) -Almost 14 million people in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan risk severe hunger due to cuts in global humanitarian aid, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday.
The WFP's biggest donor, the United States, has slashed its foreign aid under President Donald Trump, and other major nations have also made or announced cuts in development and humanitarian assistance.
(Reuters) -Israel decided to proceed with opening the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and allowing the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza, after the return of the bodies of four hostages, Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Wednesday.
Israel cancelled planned measures against Hamas that included halving the number of aid trucks entering the enclave, it said.
(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
A new US president, focused on domestic priorities, criticizes his predecessor as too hard on Israel but soon takes on the mantle of peace and reaches a deal heralded around the world.
In September 1993, it was Bill Clinton, who brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders together at the White House for the landmark first Oslo accord which marked the beginnings of Palestinian self-governance.
This weekend it was Donald Trump who sealed an agreement to end two years of devastating war in Gaza and hailed a "historic dawn of a new Middle East."
By Angelo Amante
UDINE, Italy (Reuters) -Thousands of Pro-Palestinian demonstrators on Tuesday marched in the northern Italian city of Udine before Italy's World Cup soccer qualifier against Israel, concluding their mostly peaceful protest with clashes involving police.
The march, attended by over 5,000 participants according to preliminary police estimates, wound its way through the city centre from late afternoon, before the match at the Friuli Stadium, which Italy won 3-0, kicked off at 20:45 (1845 GMT).
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had communicated to Hamas that the militant group must disarm or it will be forced to.
On Monday, Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza, and Israel sent home busloads of Palestinian detainees under a ceasefire deal brokered by Trump, but Hamas has not publicly committed to downing its weapons.
DHUMAIR, Syria -The Assad government carried out a two-year clandestine operation to truck thousands of bodies from one of Syria’s largest known mass graves to a secret location more than an hour away in the remote desert, a Reuters investigation has found.
The conspiracy by President Bashar al-Assad’s military to excavate the mass grave in Qutayfah and create an enormous second mass grave in the desert outside the town of Dhumair has not been previously reported.
US President Donald Trump's lightning summit in Egypt, meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, was more a celebration of one man's newfound peacemaker persona than a high-level political negotiation, according to diplomats.
Trump and the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey -- guarantors to the Israel-Hamas deal -- signed a document on Monday that one diplomat called "more of a vision statement than anything".
In devastated Gaza, the ceasefire is mostly holding, but most of the details of Trump's 20-point peace plan have yet to be thrashed out.
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain could take a leading role in helping to disarm Hamas in Gaza, based on its experience of encouraging militant groups in Northern Ireland to lay down their arms, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday.
Starmer told parliament that decommissioning the enclave would be vital if Donald Trump's ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is to last, the first stage of the U.S. president's 20-point framework to bring peace to the Palestinian enclave.
