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.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that "we will disarm" Hamas if the Palestinian militants refuse to do it themselves, as he called for the group to release the bodies of hostages in Gaza.

Trump's comments came the day after he swung through the Middle East to celebrate the Gaza ceasefire deal, with questions swirling about the next phases of the agreement between Israel and Hamas.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will visit Moscow on Wednesday, pro-government Syria TV and a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, despite the postponement of an Arab summit there that he had planned to attend.

Sharaa is set to hold talks on the continued presence of Russia’s naval base in Tartous and its air base in Hmeimim, a Syrian official source said.

He will also formally request the handover of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally, for trial over alleged crimes against Syrians, the source added.

Former Israeli hostage Noa Argamani spoke out Tuesday after her partner was released under the Gaza ceasefire deal, to describe the differences in their treatment in captivity in the Palestinian territory.

"Two years passed since the last moment I saw Avinatan, the love of my life," Argamani, who was freed during an Israeli military operation in June 2024, said in a post on X.

Argamani, 28, described being separated from Avinatan Or from the moment they were abducted at the Nova music festival, in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, until Or's release on Monday.

By Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -A major ramp-up of aid needed to ease famine and suffering in Gaza after two years of war has yet to happen, the Red Cross and U.N. agencies said on Tuesday, as Israeli authorities warned of slower aid flows as the southern Rafah crossing remained shut.

(Reuters) -Hamas has informed mediators it will begin transferring bodies of four deceased Israeli hostages to Israel at 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Tuesday, an official involved in the operation told Reuters.

Earlier, Israeli officials said the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would stay closed at least through Wednesday and the flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave wouldl be reduced to put pressure on the militant group to hand over the bodies of the hostages it is holding.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills; esditing by Mark Heinrich)