Weeping men carried small coffins at a funeral ceremony attended by thousands from the Druze community on Sunday for many of the 12 youths killed in a rocket strike on the Israeli annexed Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said they were struck on Saturday by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.

Israeli airstrikes hit a school used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 30 people including several children, as Israeli negotiators prepared to meet international mediators about a proposed cease-fire.

Seven children and seven women were among the dead taken from the girls' school in Deir al-Balah to Al Aqsa Hospital. Israel's military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against Israeli troops and store "large quantities of weapons." Hamas called the military's claim false.

Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediators are to meet with Israeli negotiators in the Italian capital Sunday in the latest push for a Gaza truce, Egyptian state-linked media said.

"A four-way meeting between Egyptian officials and their American and Qatari counterparts, in the presence of Israel's intelligence chief, will be held in Rome on Sunday to reach an agreement on a truce in Gaza," Al-Qahera news, which has links to Egyptian intelligence, reported, citing a "senior official" who was not identified.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.

At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for residents of southern Gaza's Khan Younis city on Saturday, after retrieving the bodies of five Israelis and warning of new operations.

The United Nations said more than 180,000 Palestinians have already fled fierce fighting in Khan Younis since the military began an operation in the area last Monday.

In consecutive days this week, China brokered a deal between rival Palestinian factions and hosted Ukraine's foreign minister at a moment when pressure is mounting on the country to negotiate an end to the grinding war there.

While it's unclear if the agreement between Hamas and Fatah will succeed where others have failed and there is little concrete progress towards peace in Ukraine, China emerged a winner, further cementing its role as a diplomatic force on the global stage, not just an economic powerhouse.

Israel on Friday slammed a U.N. rights expert for "anti-Semitism" after she endorsed a social media post comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, has faced harsh criticism from Israel previously, especially after she in March accused the country of committing genocide in the war in Gaza.

Several rockets were launched Thursday and Friday against bases hosting troops from the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq and Syria, security officials and a war monitor said.

Such attacks were frequent early in the war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants in Gaza but since then have largely halted.

U.S. President Joe Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and called on the Israeli leader to swiftly finalize a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages.

"President Biden expressed the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza," according to a White House readout, which added they discussed the "humanitarian crisis" in the embattled Palestinian territory and the need to remove obstacles to the flow of aid.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal soon with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 can return home.

Harris said she had a "frank and constructive" conversation with Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israel's right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the "dire" humanitarian situation there.