US President Joe Biden's Middle East envoy held talks in the region Tuesday as hopes rose for a new deal to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a longer pause in fighting in Gaza.
The White House said it would support a pause that was longer than the week-long halt in November, as it confirmed that Brett McGurk was in Egypt for discussions and would visit other key countries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a mounting crisis after Israel's worst day of troop losses in the Gaza war as well as growing protests over his failure to bring hostages back.
The military's strategy in the Palestinian territory is under intense scrutiny following the death of 24 troops on Monday, Israel's biggest one-day loss since its ground offensive in Gaza started in late October.
Among those killed were 21 reservists, who died in a single incident.
Syria made history by following Uzbekistan into the Asian Cup knockout rounds on Tuesday -- confirming China's exit at the first hurdle.
Omar Khribin was Syria's hero in Doha, his 76th-minute goal the difference in a 1-0 victory over Igor Stimac's India.
It is Syria's first time into the knockout rounds of the Asian Cup.
Australia topped Group B following a 1-1 draw with Uzbekistan, Hector Cuper's Syria going through to the last 16 with those two teams as one of the best third-placed teams.
Two teenage would-be migrants from Tunisia died after hiding in a refrigerated container on a ship travelling to Europe, the country's civil protection department said on Tuesday.
"Two people aged 16 and 17 died after infiltrating a container transporting fruit and vegetables on a ship that was heading to a European country," Mounir Riabi, the director of civil protection for the Tunis region, told AFP.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned Iran-backed Huthis that Britain would stage new military action if the Yemeni rebels keep attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
"We are not seeking a confrontation," he told parliament hours after a second round of US-UK strikes.
"We urge the Huthis and those who enable them to stop these illegal and unacceptable attacks.
"But if necessary, the United Kingdom will not hesitate to respond in self-defence. We cannot stand by and allow these attacks to go unchallenged," Sunak added.
Mounting maritime security threats off Yemen's coast have stalled work on scrapping a decrepit oil tanker, officials have told AFP, jeopardising a rare success story in the war-torn country.
The FSO Safer, a 48-year-old vessel with a corroding hull, was for years described as a "ticking time bomb", going unserviced as fighting raged in Yemen and fears grew that a leak or on-board explosion could release its 1.14 million barrels of crude into the Red Sea.
Iraqi no-frills carrier Fly Baghdad has condemned Washington's imposition of sanctions, saying the US Treasury provided no proof of its allegation the airline had assisted Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
In a statement on Monday, the US slapped sanctions on Fly Baghdad and its CEO, Basheer Abdulkadhim Alwan al-Shabbani, accusing them of "providing assistance to the Quds Force", the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards, "by delivering material and personnel throughout the region" including weapons.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday praised Ivory Coast for choosing a less militarised approach to security, on a tour to rally African democracies as crises engulf the region and world.
Blinken was meeting separately with two key leaders on the same day -- Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, a veteran leader who has won US praise for consolidating democracy, before heading to Abuja to see Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, elected last year on a platform of economic reforms.
Israelis on Tuesday mourned and demanded answers over the army's biggest single-day losses since ground operations in Gaza started amid growing pressure on the government to end the conflict.
Twenty-one of the 24 troops killed on Monday were reservists slain "when a squad of terrorists surprised the force" with fire from a rocket-propelled grenade, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
The army said the grenade hit a tank and two buildings they were trying to blow up.
The United States and Britain launched a second round of joint military strikes on Yemen's Huthis on Tuesday over their attacks on Red Sea shipping, as the Iran-backed rebels vowed to hit back.
The latest raids, heard by residents of the rebel-held capital Sanaa around midnight (2100 GMT), hit eight Huthi targets, a joint US-UK statement said, while the Huthis listed 18 strikes across their territory.
