Osama Siblani's phone won't stop ringing.

Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have been asking the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News if Harris can regain the support of the nation's largest Muslim population located in metro Detroit.

Hundreds gathered Monday in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams for the funeral of the last of 12 youths killed by rocket fire.

Eleven-year-old Guevara Ibrahim was initially reported missing after Saturday's strike that hit a football pitch in the Druze Arab town, but has later been confirmed dead.

The Golan Heights, a rocky plateau where 12 youths were killed Saturday amid clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, is a strategic territory partially captured by Israel from Syria.

Following the conquest of about two-thirds of the plateau during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel in 1981 annexed the area in a move not recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United States since 2019.

An Egyptian official said the deadly strike in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights could give urgency to the negotiations to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, which would be reflected on the Israeli-Hezbollah front.

He said mediators will use such an attack to press for a cease-fire in Gaza to avoid an all-out war in the region.

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.