Israel's defense ministry said the military has been instructed to prepare to defend a Druze settlement in the suburbs of Damascus, asserting that the minority it has vowed to protect was "under attack" by Syrian forces.

The statement, citing an order from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, follows an Israeli warning last weekend that the forces of neighboring Syria's new government and the insurgent group that led last year's ouster of former President Bashar Assad should not enter the area south of Damascus.

The Trump administration has approved a major nearly $3 billion arms sale to Israel, bypassing a normal congressional review to provide the country with more of the 2,000-pound bombs that it has used in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

In a series of notifications sent to Congress late Friday, the State Department said it had signed off on the sale of more than 35,500 MK 84 and BLU-117 bombs and 4,000 Predator warheads worth $2.04 billion.

Israeli police said Friday they arrested eight people for spitting at churches in Jerusalem’s Old City, as religious tensions threatened to flare in the contested capital.

Grainy security video released by the police showed two young Jewish men in a procession, who appeared to be spitting on the ground.

Israel must "better protect civilians and civilian infrastructure" in its military operation in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the German foreign ministry said Friday.

It called for the 40,000 people displaced by Israel's "Iron Wall" operation to be "allowed back to their homes as soon as possible", adding "the Israeli government's plans to deploy the Israeli army in the Jenin refugee camp on a long-term basis are unacceptable".

Hamas on Friday urged the international community to pressure Israel to enter the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire "without delay", a day before the first phase expires.

"We call on the international community to pressure the Zionist occupation (Israel) to fully commit to its role in the agreement and immediately enter the second phase of the agreement without any delay or prevarication," Hamas said in a statement.

Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his militant group Thursday to lay down its arms and dissolve as part of a new bid to end a four-decade long conflict with Turkey's government that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

In a message from his prison on an island off Istanbul, Ocalan said that the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, should hold a congress and decide to disband.

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire began Thursday, Egypt said, averting a collapse ahead of Saturday's expiration of the agreement's first phase.

Officials from Israel, Qatar and the United States started "intensive discussions" on the ceasefire's second phase in Cairo, Egypt's state information service said.

An investigation by the Israeli military has determined that Hamas was able to carry out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on Oct. 7, 2023, because the much more powerful Israeli army misjudged the militant group's intentions and underestimated its capabilities.

The findings, released Thursday, could pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a widely demanded broader inquiry to examine the political decision-making that preceded the attack, which triggered the war in Gaza.

An Arab Israeli man on Thursday rammed a vehicle into pedestrians in northern Israel before stabbing two soldiers, leaving 10 wounded before being killed by police.

The ramming attack took place at the Karkur junction south of the city of Haifa, police said in a statement.

Hamas said Thursday it was ready to negotiate the the next phase of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, after a swap in which it handed over what it said were the remains of four hostages in exchange for the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

It was the final such exchange the two sides agreed to as part of a truce that's set to end this weekend. Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for more prisoners and a lasting ceasefire, have not yet begun.