A US Navy ship in the Red Sea on Thursday shot down missiles and drones that had been fired by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, possibly at Israel, the Pentagon said.

The US intelligence community has estimated there were likely 100 to 300 people killed in the strike at the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, according to excerpts of a document seen Thursday by AFP -- far fewer than the nearly 500 deaths that health authorities in the Hamas-ruled enclave originally described.

Twitter won fame in the Arab uprisings nearly a decade ago as a pivotal source for real-time crisis information, but that reputation has withered after the platform's transformation into a magnet for hate speech and disinformation under Elon Musk.

President Joe Biden made an impassioned call for the United States to show global leadership by backing Israel and Ukraine, saying in a speech from the Oval Office Thursday that defeating Hamas and Russia was a vital US interest.

The conflict between Hamas and Israel is both an opportunity and a risk for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been mired in pressing his invasion of Ukraine for the past 19 months.

The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Wednesday calling for a "humanitarian pause" in the raging Israel-Hamas conflict as the text did not respect Israel's right to defend itself, the US ambassador said.

Asian markets tumbled Thursday on fears the Israel-Hamas crisis would spill over into a wider conflict in the Middle East, with some warning that a full-blown war was increasingly likely.

In the days following Hamas' bloody attack on Israel, many Arab and Muslim Americans have worried over signs of a return to the atmosphere of suspicion that hung over their communities in the United States after 9/11.

Joe Biden heads to the Middle East on potentially the riskiest trip of his presidency Tuesday, aiming to thread the needle between supporting Israel against Hamas, averting catastrophe in Gaza and preventing a regional war.

The stench of death is overwhelming in Israel's National Center of Forensic Medicine, where experts have been trying to identify the remains of hundreds of people slain in the Hamas attacks.

US President Joe Biden will pay a solidarity visit to Israel on Wednesday following the Hamas attacks, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also announced that Israel had agreed to work on civilian aid for Gaza.

Colombia on Monday said Israel's ambassador should leave the South American country before rowing back comments amid a worsening spat over President Gustavo Petro's remarks on the war with Hamas.

Nicolás Maduro said Palestinian President Abbas informed him in detail about the development of events alongside "the diplomatic deployment of the Palestinian National Authority as a leadership body, committed to peace, dialogue, and respect for the agreements signed between the parties."

Any move by Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip again would be a "big mistake," US President Joe Biden said in an interview released on Sunday, as Israeli troops prepared for a ground invasion.

The UN estimates that about one million people have been displaced since Israel began a relentless aerial bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for Hamas's deadly assault on October 7.

In the eight days since Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,300 Israelis in their surprise onslaught, Israel has responded with a devastating bombing campaign that has claimed over 2,300 lives in Gaza.

"We strongly condemn President Petro's statements and call on him to condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, for its barbaric murder of Israeli men, women, and children," Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt of the office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (SEAS) said.

The funds would be used to help more than 1.2 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, adding that recent fighting in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources.

Like clockwork, every 30 seconds Israeli artillery goes into action against a barely visible target somewhere in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Several countries have been airlifting nationals who have requested to leave as the armed conflict escalates

President Joe Biden urged Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to follow the rules of war after the Israeli prime minister vowed to destroy Hamas following the Palestinian militants' brutal attack.

Thousands have already been killed on both sides since Hamas on Saturday launched its devastating attacks against Israeli civilian targets, prompting massive Israeli retaliatory strikes on the densely-packed Gaza Strip

Israel on paper enjoys vast numerical superiority over Palestinian militant group Hamas in terms of forces and hardware but the numbers mask a picture that is far more troubling for the Israeli government, analysts say.

The EU's digital chief Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk on Tuesday that his platform X, formerly Twitter, is spreading "illegal content and disinformation", in a letter seen by AFP. The letter said concerns had heightened after the Hamas attack against Israel, and demanded Musk respond to the complaint within 24 hours and contact "relevant law enforcement authorities".

John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, said the U.S. has no intention to put U.S. troops on the ground in Israel

At Israel's Ramla military base, civilian volunteers and reservists gather in a show of unity that comes after nearly a year of unprecedented political division in the nation.

Some thousand demonstrators on Sunday gathered in Manhattan in solidarity with Palestinians as pro-Israel marchers counter-protested following a bloody escalation in the Middle East conflict.

President Joe Biden ordered US ships and warplanes to move closer to Israel in a show of support on Sunday, while sending fresh military aid after attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The Israeli army said tens of thousands of soldiers were deployed to fight militants in southern desert regions near the coastal enclave, to rescue Israeli hostages and then evacuate the entire region within 24 hours.

Israel has launched retaliatory strikes in the Gaza Strip, where the death toll has risen to almost 200