Gaza's civil defense agency said Saturday that Israeli forces had killed at least 36 Palestinians, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution center.

Iranian state television reported that Tehran had obtained a trove of "strategic and sensitive" Israeli intelligence, including files related to Israel's nuclear facilities and defense plans.

Israel's military has announced the deaths of four soldiers in Gaza, saying it needed thousands more troops to press its offensive, just as the premier's coalition faces the prospect of collapse over ultra-Orthodox conscription.

News of the soldiers' deaths came as Gaza's civil defense agency reported 38 killed Friday in Israeli attacks across the territory, where Palestinians observed the Eid al-Adha holiday under the shadow of war for a second consecutive year.

Israeli forces have retrieved from the Gaza Strip the body of Natthapong Pinta, a Thai taken hostage during Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack, officials said Saturday.

An aid ship with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, has reached the Egyptian coast and is nearing the besieged Palestinian territory, organizers said on Saturday.

The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies "to break Israel's blockade on Gaza".

The issue of conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli army has become a thorn in the side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sparking threats to derail his coalition and trigger early elections if he ends a long-standing exemption.

The United Nations chief on Thursday urged world leaders and officials attending an upcoming U.N. conference on ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict "to keep the two-state solution alive."

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace but "materialize the conditions to make it happen."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has "activated" some clans of Palestinians in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, though it was not immediately clear what role they would play.

His comments on social media were the first public acknowledgment of Israel's backing of armed Palestinian groups within Gaza, based around powerful clans or extended families.

Hamas' lead negotiator said Thursday the militant movement was ready for a new round of negotiations with a view to achieving a permanent ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

"We reaffirm that we are ready for a new, serious round of negotiations aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire agreement," lead Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said in a televised speech marking the start of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festivities.

Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Thursday that recognizing a Palestinian state at the moment would send "the wrong signal".

Speaking at a Berlin press conference with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar, he said that "negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be concluded" first, before the recognition of a Palestinian state.