Israeli and Hamas officials are set to hold indirect talks at an Egyptian resort Monday on a U.S.-drafted peace plan to end the ruinous war in Gaza on the eve of its second anniversary.

Many uncertainties remain about the plan presented by U.S. President Donald Trump last week, including the disarmament of the militant group — a key Israeli demand — and the future governance of Gaza. Trump is seeking an agreement on Gaza, which he has indicated could pave the way for a revamped Middle East peace process that could reshape the region.

Israel's army said Saturday that it would advance preparations for the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza and return all the remaining hostages, after Hamas said it accepted parts of the deal while others still needed to be negotiated.

Hamas said Friday that it has accepted some elements of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in the Gaza Strip, including giving up power and releasing all remaining hostages, but that others require further consultations among Palestinians.

The statement came hours after Trump said that Hamas must agree to the deal by Sunday evening, threatening an even greater military onslaught nearly two years into the war sparked by the Oct. 7 attack into Israel. There was no immediate response from the United States or Israel, which is largely shut down for the Jewish Sabbath.

The U.S. military has begun drawing down its mission in Iraq under an agreement inked with the Iraqi government last year, officials said Wednesday.

Activists on board a flotilla of vessels sailing toward Gaza said they were prepared for the Israel navy to intervene as they approached the besieged Palestinian territory on Wednesday after a tense night in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, with Greta Thunberg aboard, consists of about 50 boats and 500 activists and is carrying a symbolic amount of aid. It has remained undeterred in its mission to break the Israeli blockade of the coastal strip and reach Palestinians.

Israel pressed its offensive in Gaza on Wednesday, with at least 16 Palestinians reported killed across the strip as Hamas mulled its response to U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan for the embattled territory.

Indonesian rescue workers were racing against the clock on Wednesday in the search for survivors from a school collapse in the province of East Java, with at least 90 students still unaccounted for, along with three confirmed dead and about 100 injured.

The Islamic boarding school, which authorities said was undergoing an unauthorized expansion to add two new stories, collapsed during afternoon prayers on Monday, sending slabs of concrete and other heavy debris crashing onto the students below.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have finally outmaneuvered Hamas.

After facing months of genocide accusations, pariah status and global pressure to halt the war in Gaza, Netanyahu has agreed on a ceasefire plan with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Rescuers used backhoes and sniffer dogs to look for survivors in collapsed houses and other damaged buildings in the central Philippines Wednesday, a day after an earthquake killed at least 69 people.

The death toll was expected to rise from the magnitude-6.9 earthquake that hit at about 10 p.m. Tuesday and trapped an unspecified number of residents in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province.

Plunged into a government shutdown, the U.S. is confronting a fresh cycle of uncertainty after President Donald Trump and Congress failed to strike an agreement to keep government programs and services running by Wednesday's deadline.

Roughly 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed, some potentially fired by the Trump administration. Many offices will be shuttered, perhaps permanently, as Trump vows to "do things that are irreversible, that are bad" as retribution. His deportation agenda is expected to run full speed ahead, while education, environmental and other services sputter. The economic fallout is expected to ripple nationwide.