An Israeli official has confirmed that Mohammad Deif, the head of Hamas' military wing, was the target of Saturday's Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement, said Rafa Salama, another top Hamas official, was also targeted in the strike.

The United Nations chief has appealed for funding for the beleaguered U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East, accusing Israel of issuing evacuation orders that force Palestinians "to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death."

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a donor's conference that the agency, known as UNRWA, faces "a profound funding gap."

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement's political bureau said.

Gaza's civil defense agency said it found around 60 bodies after Israeli troops withdrew from parts of Gaza City on Friday, as heavy fighting gripped the Palestinian territory.

The grisly discovery came as international mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war now raging into its 10th month.

A Dutch court on Friday rejected a claim from a group of human rights organizations that the Netherlands is dodging a court order to stop sending F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel which could use them in Gaza.

The Hague District Court ruled that Oxfam Novib, Pax Nederland and The Rights Forum had not shown any evidence that the Dutch government was ignoring the earlier ruling.

Dozens of bodies collected throughout a western neighborhood of Gaza City arrived at Al-Ahli Hospital on Friday morning as Palestinian emergency workers said they continued to unearth the dead throughout the neighborhood’s destroyed streets and buildings.

The hospital’s director, Fadel Naem, told The Associated Press that people both dead and wounded had been brought to the hospital from the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, transported in groups of up to 10, amid sniper fire and the buzz of helicopters.

President Joe Biden acknowledged disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right government, but pointed to increased hopes now of a cease-fire to end the Israel-Hamas war devastating the lives of Gaza’s people.

Biden looked back Thursday over the course of his efforts in Israel’s war against Hamas during a much-watched press conference at the site of the just ended NATO summit.

The Israeli military has acknowledged a string of errors in its response to the deadly Hamas attacks last Oct. 7, including slow response times and disorganization, as it released the results of its first investigation into failures during the assault that triggered the war in Gaza.

The report focused on the border community of Be'eri, where over 100 people were killed and more than 30 others taken hostage by Hamas. It was among the hardest-hit communities in the early morning attack, and it was the scene of one of the highest-profile confrontations of Oct. 7 – a standoff in which militants held a group of hostages inside a home.

Israel will send a delegation to Cairo for further talks with mediators on a proposed deal with Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday.

Israel has been pressing ahead with a fresh offensive across the north, south and center of the Gaza Strip in recent days, which could be aimed at increasing pressure on Gaza’s Hamas militant group during cease-fire negotiations.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Assad have recently signaled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade.

Erdogan has said that he will soon extend an invitation to Assad to meet for the first time since Ankara and Damascus broke off relations in 2011, as mass anti-government protests and a brutal crackdown by security forces in Syria spiraled into a still-ongoing civil war.