The U.N. Security Council’s 10 elected members have circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire” in Gaza.

The draft resolution, which was sent to the council’s five permanent members Thursday, reiterates the council’s demand “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” seized during Hamas’ surprise attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel says about 100 are still being held, though not all are believed to be alive.

A war monitor said an Israeli strike on an apartment killed four people in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus Thursday, also reporting a similar attack on the capital's outskirts.

"Four people were killed in the Israeli strike on on apartment in Mazzeh, Damascus, with another Israeli strike hitting Qudsaya," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights, told AFP. Syrian state media said an unspecified number of victims were killed in the strikes on the apartments.

The EU's outgoing foreign policy chief has urged the bloc to suspend a political dialogue with Israel over human rights concerns in Gaza but it is likely to be vetoed, diplomats said Thursday.

Josep Borrell raised his proposal during a meeting of ambassadors on Wednesday, according to four diplomats involved, and is expected to formalize it when European Union foreign ministers gather in Brussels early next week.

The U.S. military says it has conducted several days of strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The strikes included U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft, including the Navy’s F-35C stealth fighter jet, it said Thursday.

Several Israeli airstrikes have targeted a city in western Syria near the border with Lebanon, Syrian state media said.

Israel's warplanes hit Wednesday bridges and military checkpoints in the area around al-Qusayr and led to the activation of air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war monitor.

U.S. forces have conducted strikes in Syria against Iranian-aligned militia groups for a second day in a row in response to further attacks on U.S. personnel, U.S. Central Command said late Tuesday.

In the latest retaliatory strikes, U.S. forces hit a weapons storage and logistics facility after militia groups launched a rocket attack on U.S. personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi in eastern Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is urging Israel to allow displaced Palestinians and aid back into Gaza and says it should end the war against Hamas now that it’s achieved its main security aims.

“The situation is so difficult and so dramatic that to fully redress it, to fully answer the needs of people, the best way to do that is to end the war,” Blinken told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, an ally of Hamas, released a video on Wednesday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7 attack on Israel.

The video shows Sasha Troufanov, likely speaking under duress, describing the harsh conditions inside Gaza, warning against military operations to free him and calling on Israelis to protest for his release.

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past day, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, medics said.

The latest bombardment came as the United States said it would not reduce its military support for Israel after a deadline passed for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The State Department cited some progress, even as international aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the U.S. demands.

Russia has asked Israel to avoid launching aerial strikes as part of its war against Lebanon's Hezbollah near one of Moscow's bases in Syria, a top official said Wednesday.