The American chicken franchise, fast-food rival McDonald’s and US coffee chain Starbucks have all become targets of a nationwide boycott movement triggered by Israel’s war on Gaza.

The crackdown at Columbia, at the centre of Gaza-related protests roiling university campuses across the US, came as police at the University of Texas at Austin arrested dozens of students.

US and Israeli officials have said they hope to have the floating pier in place, the causeway attached to the shore and operations under way by early May.

UK foreign minister David Cameron said Hamas has been offered a 40-day ceasefire and the release of “potentially thousands” of Palestinian prisoners in return for freeing Israeli hostages.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said Israel must still do more to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into besieged Gaza

The White House insisted that pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US universities in recent weeks must remain peaceful.

It’s the top US diplomat’s seventh Middle Eastern trip since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

The White House said US President Joe Biden reiterated his ‘clear position’ as Israel plans to invade Rafah despite global concern for more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering there.

Mahmoud Abbas said such an invasion on the Gazan city, which is sheltering more than a million residents, would be ‘the biggest catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people’.

Captives Keith Siegel and Omri Miran appear alive in the footage, which appeared to have been taken earlier this week.

The Yemen-based rebels say they hit the aircraft with a missile as part of a renewed series of assaults amid the Israel-Gaza war.

The militant group, which has insisted on a permanent ceasefire, said it would submit its response after examining the proposal.

An official with the UN Mine Action Service said unexploded ordnance buried in the rubble would complicate the clean-up operation.

The baby, named Rouh meaning Soul, suffered respiratory problems and a weak immune system, died on Thursday.

Analysis using remote sensing technology from Wuhan University puts the level of damage at about 60 per cent.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with the Israeli army since the day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

The jetty, part of an effort to avert famine in the Palestinian enclave amid Israel’s campaign against Hamas, is set to become operational next month.

Europe must not become a vassal of the US, he said, as he outlined his vision for a more assertive EU on the global stage.

The university cancelled all scheduled activities involving Gilley, who left Malaysia saying he was one step ahead of the ‘mob’ whipped up by the government.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said US President Joe Biden should take action, and suggested sending in the National Guard to ‘bring order’ to campuses rocked by pro-Palestinian protests.

40,000 tents have been bought for the evacuation of civilians, and all that remains is for PM Benjamin Netanyahu to give the order, an Israeli official says.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was seriously wounded during his abduction from the Nova music festival on October 7, and the video shows him missing a hand.

The US Senate approved billions in aid for Israel, which is locked in a war with Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Student protests in the US over the war in Gaza have intensified and expanded over the past week. Police have been called in to several campuses to arrest demonstrators.

The baby girl survived after she was delivered by caesarean section as her mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was fatally wounded from an Israel air strike.

On Monday, the Palestinian territory’s Civil Defence agency said health workers had uncovered more than 200 bodies of people killed and buried at Nasser hospital, which was besieged by Israeli troops last month.