By Michal Yaakov Itzaki and Rami Amichay

MEITAR, Israel, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The mother of the last hostage in Gaza says Israel will not heal until he or his remains are brought home, and that the next phase of a peace plan should not proceed until he is back.

Police officer Ran Gvili was one of 251 hostages seized and taken to Gaza by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Dec 8 (Reuters) - Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said on Monday it had taken control of the strategic Heglig oilfield in the South Kordofan province.

Heglig, which lies along Sudan's southern border, houses the main processing facility for South Sudanese oil, which makes up much of the revenue for South Sudan's government.

Government forces and workers at the Heglig oil field withdrew from the area on Sunday to avoid clashes that could have damaged the oil facilities, government sources told Reuters.

Dec 8 (Reuters) - Global leaders pledged $1.9 billion to advance polio eradication on Monday, accelerating efforts to protect 370 million children from polio each year amid significant funding cuts.

The budget of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership that includes the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation, is expected to take a 30% cut in 2026 and has a funding gap of $1.7 billion up to 2029.

By Lili Bayer, John Irish and Maya Gebeily

BRUSSELS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The European Union is studying options for strengthening Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces to help free up the Lebanese army to focus on disarming the armed group Hezbollah, according to a document seen by Reuters on Monday.

A 2024 truce between Lebanon and Israel remains fragile, with Israel carrying out regular strikes on Lebanese territory that it says are targeting Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa vowed to usher in an era of justice and coexistence a year after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to mark the anniversary.

Sharaa's Islamist-led alliance launched a lightning offensive in late November last year and took Damascus on December 8, bringing a sudden end to more than five decades of Assad family rule and over a decade of civil war.

DUBAI, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The trial of a dual national holding European citizenship has begun in Iran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday, saying they were indicted for "intelligence cooperation and espionage in favour of the Zionist regime (Israel)."

According to the Alborz provincial attorney general, the defendant - whose identity has not been disclosed - entered Iran about a month before the 12-day war in June, during which Israel and the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear facilities.

GENEVA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - More than 3 million Syrians have returned home since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's rule a year ago but a decline in global funding could deter others, the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday.

Some 1.2 million refugees in addition to 1.9 million internally displaced people have gone back home following the civil war that ended with Assad's overthrow, but millions more are yet to return, according to UNHCR.

The agency said much more support was needed to ensure the trend continues.

DAMASCUS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - A year after dictator Bashar al-Assad's ouster in Syria, little has changed in Amina Beqai's desperate quest. She types her missing husband's name yet again into an internet search box, hoping for answers to a 13-year-old question. In vain.

Beqai has nowhere else to turn.

A National Commission for Missing Persons established in May has been gathering evidence of enforced disappearances under Assad, but has yet to offer families any clues on the estimated 150,000 people who vanished in his notorious prisons.

GENEVA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Monday appealed for an aid budget only half the size of what it had hoped for this year, acknowledging a plunge in donor funding at a time when humanitarian needs have never been greater.

By its own admission, the $23 billion U.N. appeal will shut out tens of millions of people in urgent need of help as falling support has forced it to prioritise only the most desperate.

The funding cuts come on top of other challenges for aid agencies that include security risks to staff in conflict zones and lack of access.

DAMASCUS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Syrians will mark the first anniversary of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and his iron-fisted rule on Monday, as the fractured nation struggles to find stability and recover after years of war.

Official celebrations are planned for the central Umayyad Square in Damascus, which has already been packed with jubilant gatherings ahead of December 8, and elsewhere around the country.