French President Emmanuel Macron warned Thursday that expanding Israeli settlements threatened a Palestinian state and US-led peace efforts, as France hosted Arab and European ministers to find ways to boost the Palestinians after a Gaza ceasefire deal was announced.

Macron hailed the ceasefire deal as a "great hope" for the region, but said the "acceleration" of settlement construction in the occupied West Bank was an "existential threat" to a Palestinian state.

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -With the Gaza war entering its third year, U.S. President Donald Trump has achieved something no other world leader has been able to do: strong-arm Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the first step of a broader peace deal while persuading other Middle Eastern countries to pressure Hamas.

By Jasper Ward

(Reuters) -The United Nations plans to ramp up its delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza in the first 60 days of a ceasefire in the enclave, a top UN official said on Thursday, hours after a deal was struck between Israel and Hamas.

The deal is expected to go into effect 24 hours after an Israeli government meeting on Thursday. It will allow fleets of trucks carrying food and medical aid into Gaza, and allow the release of hostages and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces.

It began with a hastily written note and a whisper. It ended with a Gaza deal long sought by Donald Trump.

Something was obviously going on when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made an unexpected appearance during a roundtable at the White House on the left-wing Antifa movement on Wednesday.

"By the way, we have Marco Rubio. Marco, come on up here please," Trump said, beckoning him over to his side of the White House's State Dining Room. "Anything we should know about the Middle East?"

There was. But the scrupulously low-key Rubio was not about to do it in public.

By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the Gaza hostages should be released on Monday or Tuesday and that he hopes to attend a signing ceremony in Egypt.

Trump opened a White House Cabinet meeting by discussing a dealreached on Wednesday under which the hostages held by Hamas militants are to be released in the first phase of a broader Gaza plan. He said he believed it will lead to "lasting peace."

US President Donald Trump said he expected to travel to the Middle East on Sunday to celebrate the first phase of the Gaza peace deal and be there for the release of hostages by Hamas.

Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Trump said the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian armed group had "ended the war in Gaza."

The US leader added that "nobody's going to be forced to leave" the Palestinian territory under his 20-point peace plan, which formed the basis for indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel in Egypt.

LONDON (Reuters) -A Palestinian rights group on Thursday sought to overturn a ruling that Britain lawfully allowed F-35 fighter jet components to be indirectly exported to Israel, despite accepting they could be used to breach international humanitarian law.

Al-Haq, a group based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, unsuccessfully challenged Britain's Department for Business and Trade over its decision last year to exempt F-35 parts when it suspended export licences for arms that could be used in the conflict in Gaza.

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the coming hours will be decisive for cementing peace in Gaza and that the current conference on the matter held in Paris aimed to work in parallel with the U.S. initiative.

France is hosting a meeting of foreign ministers from Western and Arab countries in Paris on Thursday to discuss an international peacekeeping force and reconstruction assistance for Gaza once the fighting stops.

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) -The United States' closest European and Arab partners met in Paris on Thursday to work out how to shape Gaza's post-war future, hours after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and prisoner-hostage swap proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"This is the best chance we have right now," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters. "But we need to work for the plan after (the war), so that it would be sustainable, and that's why we are also here."

HAVANA (Reuters) -Thousands of Cubans demonstrated in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana on Thursday to protest the war in Gaza, even as Israel and Hamas announced a ceasefire and hostage deal that could pave the way to ending the two-year-old conflict.

The event, led by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and organized by the communist-run government, filled a plaza along Havana's waterfront Malecon boulevard and prompted the U.S. Embassy on the island to halt services on Thursday.