- Calm before derby storm for Inter as dark fan underbelly revealed
- Musk brands Australia 'fascists' after move to fine tech giants
- Super Rugby revamps format for 2025 knock-out stages
- Microsoft cutting more jobs from its gaming unit
- London Fashion Week opens with Charli XCX party
- US says new Apple AirPods can be hearing aids
- Bonding boosts Europe's bid to take fourth Solheim Cup in a row
- Yamal wants to become a Barcelona 'legend'
- OpenAI releases reasoning AI with eye on safety, accuracy
- State judge strikes down North Dakota abortion ban
- No.1 Korda opens Solheim Cup for USA versus Hull and Henseleit
- Trump rules out new Harris debate as swing state fight resumes
- Bomb threat rattles US city in Republican anti-migrant conspiracy
- ECB rate cut boosts European stocks as Wall Street extends rally
- Alvarez aims to stop knockout artist Berlanga in latest title defence
- Business groups ask Ottawa to prevent Air Canada strike
- Cooler weather helps, but Los Angeles fires still out of control
- Macron, ex-PM remember bloody liberation of French port
- Noel Gallagher's 'Brit Pop' guitars go under hammer
- US clears way for hearing aid feature in new Apple AirPods Pro
- Hamilton not disappointed by Newey move to Aston Martin
- Final report clears WADA in Chinese swimmers case, adds rules need strengthening
- US calls for Africa to get two permanent UN Security Council seats
- Burrow's Bengals aim to bounce back against Chiefs
- Ingebrigtsen says getting stronger, bullish over world records
- Putin warns West risks 'war' if it backs Ukraine long-range strikes
- Peru mourns divisive former strongman Fujimori
- Vaughan's son takes 11 wickets as Somerset revive title bid by beating champions Surrey
- Long-awaited case on Man City charges to start on Monday: report
- PSG refuse League order to pay Mbappe disputed €55 million
- Harris, Trump target swing states after fierce debate
- Ten Hag hits back at Ronaldo criticism over Man Utd ambition
- Oscar hopefuls to bookend US French film festival
- UN chief calls for 'courage' ahead of Summit of the Future
- French rugby federation blames 'poorly managed' supervision for youth player drowning
- Movie producer Harvey Weinstein indicted on new charges: US media
- Ex-Scotland captain Hogg to miss Montpellier match after bail release
- 'Historic': Bad weather slashes wine harvest in France's Jura
- ECB rate cut boosts European stocks, euro
- Piastri not 'pulling over' for Norris at every race
- 'Energised' Tebogo looking to close season with Diamond League bang
- Millions in SE Asia battle floods, death toll passes 250
- Fiat 500 electric production pauses for one month
- London Fashion Week opens with Charli XCX party and second-hand runways
- ECB cuts rates again, Lagarde backs EU reform call
- Storm Francine downgraded but still drenching US south
- Everton say 'work to be done' on Textor takeover
- Shelling kills 3 Red Cross workers in E.Ukraine
- Shelling kills 3 Red Cross workers killed in E.Ukraine
- Iran president makes 'historic' visit to Iraqi Kurdistan
US says progress made at Gaza truce talks in Cairo
The United States said Friday progress had been made at the latest round of Gaza truce talks, after the presence of Israeli troops on the Egyptian border emerged as a major sticking point.
The White House said CIA chief William Burns was among US officials taking part in the discussions in Cairo, joining the heads of Israel's spy agency and security service.
"There has been progress made. We need now for both sides to come together and work towards implementation," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Preliminary talks which began on Thursday evening "were constructive in nature", he said, adding that reports that the diplomacy was "near collapse" were inaccurate.
Representatives of Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war, were not taking part in the Cairo talks.
An official from the Islamist movement, Hossam Badran, told AFP Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence that his troops remain on a strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border called the Philadelphi Corridor reflects "his refusal to reach a final agreement".
Egypt with fellow mediators Qatar and the United States have for months tried to reach a deal to end more than 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded.
Fighting raged on in Gaza, where witnesses reported combat in the north of the territory, heavy shelling in the centre, and tank fire in the far south near Rafah city.
The United Nations said tens of thousands of civilians have been on the move again this week from Deir el-Balah and the southern city of Khan Yunis after Israeli evacuation orders, which precede military operations.
The war has displaced virtually all of Gaza's population, often multiple times, leaving them deprived of shelter, clean water and other essentials as disease spreads, the UN says.
- 'This cannot continue' -
"Civilians are exhausted and terrified, running from one destroyed place to another, with no end in sight," Muhannad Hadi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said late Thursday.
"This cannot continue," he said.
The Israeli military said that over the previous 24 hours troops had "eliminated dozens" of militants around Khan Yunis and Deir el-Balah.
Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,265 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most dead are women and children.
Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.
The Israeli military recovered the remains of six hostages from a tunnel in the Khan Yunis area this week.
Netanyahu faces regular protests by hostage supporters demanding a deal to bring home the captives.
Ella Ben Ami, whose father is among those held in Gaza, said after meeting Netanyahu on Friday that she "left with a heavy and difficult feeling that this (ceasefire deal) isn't going to happen soon".
"I fear for my father's life, for the girls who are there, and for everyone," she said in a statement released by campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
- 'Now is the time' -
Diplomatic efforts to reach a Gaza truce and avert a wider war intensified following the killings of two senior Iran-backed militants last month that sparked threats of reprisals from Tehran and its allies, who blamed Israel.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war began.
Accepting her Democratic party's presidential nomination in Chicago, US Vice President Kamala Harris said "now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done".
The basis of talks has been a framework which US President Joe Biden outlined in late May, and which he described as an Israeli proposal.
The three-phase plan would initially see hostages exchanged for Palestinians in Israeli jails during what Biden called a "full and complete ceasefire" lasting six weeks.
Israeli forces would withdraw from "all populated areas of Gaza", under the plan.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Middle East this week and said that Netanyahu was onboard with a US proposal to bridge gaps and reach a ceasefire.
Kirby said that the United States continued to believe that Netanyahu accepted the proposal and appealed again to Hamas to do the same.
He said Hamas will accept "nothing less than the withdrawal of occupation forces, Philadelphi included".
The office of Netanyahu, whose hard-right coalition relies on the support of members opposed to a truce, rejected as "incorrect" media reports that "Netanyahu has agreed that Israel will withdraw" from the Philadelphi Corridor.
Netanyahu sees control of the strip along the Egyptian border as necessary to prevent Hamas rearming.
burs-dr/kir
P.Mathewson--AMWN