Egypt’s leader has reiterated his opposition to any transfer of the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip, as suggested by U.S. President Donald Trump.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday called on the international community to support a reconstruction plan that would allow Palestinians to stay in their homeland. He said the reconstruction of Gaza must be implemented “without the transfer of the Palestinian people from their land to which they cling.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Wednesday with the leader of the United Arab Emirates, wrapping up an overseas trip that saw the highest-level outreach between the United States and Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Rubio's talk with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also the ruler of Abu Dhabi, comes as the U.S. also tries to continue a shaky ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the militant Hamas group.

By car and on foot, through muddy olive groves and snipers' sight lines, tens of thousands of Palestinians in recent weeks have fled Israeli military operations across the northern West Bank — the largest displacement in the occupied territory since the 1967 Mideast war.

After announcing a widespread crackdown against West Bank militants on Jan. 21 — just two days after its ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza — Israeli forces descended on the restive city of Jenin, as they have dozens of times since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

An Israeli official said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a close confidant to lead negotiations for the second stage of the ceasefire with Hamas.

The official says that Cabinet Minister Ron Dermer will head the Israeli team. Previous talks have been led by the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet security agencies.

U.S. tech giants have quietly empowered Israel to track and kill many more alleged militants more quickly in Gaza and Lebanon through a sharp spike in artificial intelligence and computing services. But the number of civilians killed has also soared, along with fears that these tools are contributing to the deaths of innocent people.

Militaries have for years hired private companies to build custom autonomous weapons. However, Israel's recent wars mark a leading instance in which commercial AI models made in the United States have been used in active warfare, despite concerns that they were not originally developed to help decide who lives and who dies.

At least nine people have died in the most recent round of harsh weather to pummel the U.S., including eight people in Kentucky who died as creeks swelled from heavy rain and water covered roads.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Sunday that hundreds of people stranded by flooding had to be rescued. President Donald Trump approved the state's request for a disaster declaration, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts throughout the state.

Coach Carlo Ancelotti is not buying Manchester City rival Pep Guardiola's suggestion that his own side has only a 1% chance of eliminating Real Madrid in the Champions League playoffs on Wednesday.

Madrid rallied late to win the first leg 3-2 last week in England to seize control ahead of its home match at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

Wall Street is flirting with a record again as U.S. stock indexes creep higher on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 was up 0.1% in early trading and just above its all-time closing high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 59 points, or 0.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

Lebanese troops deployed Tuesday in the main square of the southern border town of Kfar Kila, as a military bulldozer removed rubble from the street.

A ceasefire in Gaza was in doubt as the region marked 500 days of Israel's war with Hamas, while Israel and the United States sent conflicting signals over whether they want the truce to continue. Talks on the ceasefire's second phase are yet to start.

500 days of war in Gaza