Israel's demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has long rejected, threatens to unravel cease-fire talks aimed at ending the 10-month-old war, freeing scores of hostages and preventing an even wider conflict.

Officials close to the negotiations have said Israel wants to maintain a military presence in a narrow buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border it calls the Philadelphi corridor and in an area it carved out that cuts off northern Gaza from the south, known as the Netzarim corridor.

Hezbollah has gradually revealed its military capabilities in 10 months of cross-border clashes with Israel, analysts say, including footage of underground missile facilities released Friday amid fears of all-out war.

A daring Ukrainian military push into Russia's Kursk region has seen Kyiv's forces seize scores of villages, take hundreds of prisoners and force the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians in what has become the largest attack on the country since World War II.

In more than a week of fighting, Russian troops are still struggling to drive out the invaders.

Iran's threatened retaliatory strike on Israel over the assassination of Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh drew major world powers on Tuesday into a high-wire act of diplomacy.

Halting or limiting an Iranian strike in some eyes could bolster a monthslong effort to reach a cease-fire in a war that's devastated the Gaza Strip and killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, according to the territory's health ministry. It could also free the Israeli hostages who remain captive there since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.