Hamas said Thursday it will send a delegation to Cairo as soon as possible to keep working on cease-fire talks, in response to Egypt's latest proposal. In a statement, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said he spoke Egypt’s intelligence chief and “stressed the positive spirit of the movement in studying the cease-fire proposal.” The statement did not say when the delegation would travel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in the Mideast this week in a renewed push for a cease-fire deal. The proposed truce would free hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a halt to the fighting and the delivery of much needed food, medicine and water into Gaza. Palestinian prisoners are also expected to be released as part of the deal.

If the Israel-Hamas war stopped today, it would still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed in nearly seven months of Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in the besieged territory, according to United Nations estimates released Thursday.

The war has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and the territory's entire population has been driven into a humanitarian catastrophe.

The war started on Oct. 7 when Palestinian militants launched an unprecedented attack into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting around 250 hostages. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Currently:

— As Hamas considers cease-fire, question hangs: Will Israel end war without the group’s destruction?

— Colombia’s president says the country will break diplomatic relations with Israel over the war in Gaza.

— The Biden administration is weighing measures to help Palestinians bring family from the region.

— As protests and police action roil U.S. schools, there’s been a pause in nonstop media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

— Student journalists are covering their own campuses in convulsion. Here’s what they have to say

— Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest are ready to remove Palestinian flags or symbols.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Here's the latest:

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden defended the right to peacefully protest on college campuses but said vandalism, violence, hate speech and other “chaos” has no part in a peaceful protest.

“Dissent is essential for democracy,” he said at the White House Thursday morning. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”

Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have popped up at many college campuses following the arrest of demonstrators in April at Columbia University.

The Democratic president said the U.S. is neither an authoritarian nation that squashes dissent nor a lawless country.

“We are a civil society and order must prevail,” Biden said. “We are a big, diverse, free-thinking and freedom-loving nation.”

Tensions at colleges and universities have been building, with demonstrators refusing to remove encampments, administrators cancelling classes and events and police clearing some protests by force.

The Associated Press has tallied at least 41 times since April 18 where arrests were made at campus protests across the U.S. Nearly 1,750 people have been arrested at 32 schools.

JERUSALEM — Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has met with the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister in Abu Dhabi.

The state-run WAM news agency confirmed the meeting between Lapid and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan. WAM described Sheikh Abdullah as telling Lapid about “the importance of working towards achieving a cease-fire and avoiding a regional spillover” in the Israel-Hamas war still raging in the Gaza Strip.

Sheikh Abdullah also said a permanent peace would need to be based on a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

On the social platform X, Lapid wrote: “I told him that the most urgent thing is to return the hostages home.” A current proposed cease-fire would see some of the remaining hostages who were taken captive after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians prisoners in Israeli custody.

Lapid’s visit comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still has not visited the UAE since it reached a diplomatic recognition deal with Israel in 2020. The UAE has faced criticism in the Arab world for its ties to Israel, particularly as the war goes on and as health officials in Gaza say more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the latest round of fighting.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s national security council has issued a warning urging people to reconsider travel to Malmo, Sweden, for the upcoming Eurovision song contest.

In a statement, the council described Malmo as “a focus for anti-Israel protests” that include calls to attack Israelis and the burning of Israeli flags.

“These developments raise the tangible concern that terrorists will exploit the protest and the anti-Israel atmosphere to carry out an attack on Israelis who will arrive for the Eurovision,” it said.

It said it considers travel to Malmo to pose a “moderate threat” and recommends that Israelis heading to the city “reconsider the necessity of the trip.”

It said the warning would remain in effect for the duration of the Eurovision contest — scheduled to run from May 7-11.

The war in Gaza has heightened tensions around Israel’s participation in Eurovision. Pro-Palestinian groups are expected to stage large protests in Malmo, and contest organizers say they reserve the right to remove any Palestinian flags or pro-Palestinian symbols at the show.

CAIRO — Hamas says it is sending a delegation to Cairo to continue cease-fire talks.

Hamas had been expected to deliver an answer to Egypt’s latest proposal as soon as Thursday.

In a statement, the group’s supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said he had spoken to Egypt’s intelligence chief and “stressed the positive spirit of the movement in studying the ceasefire proposal.”

The statement said Hamas negotiators would travel to Egypt as soon as possible “to complete the ongoing discussions with the aim of working forward for an agreement.”

The statement did not say when the delegation would travel.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and a cease-fire in a phone call Thursday, German government spokesperson Wolfgang Buechner said, without providing details.

Further improvements in the supply of humanitarian aid to people in Gaza was also a topic, Buechner said in an emailed statement.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany is the second-largest supplier of arms to Israel, behind the United States. It's also among the countries that announced it would resume cooperation with the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians in Gaza after the publication of an independent review of its neutrality — a decision Israel's Foreign Ministry had called “regrettable and disappointing.”

BEIRUT — The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday the bodies of 28 people killed by Israeli strikes were brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 51 wounded, it said in its daily report.

That brings the overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war to at least 34,596, the ministry said, and 77,816 wounded. The Health Ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies, but says that women and children make up around two-thirds of those killed.

The Israeli military says it has killed some 13,000 militants, without providing evidence to back up the claim.

AMMAN, Jordan — If the war in Gaza stopped today, it would still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed in nearly seven months of Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in the territory, according to United Nations estimates released Thursday.

“Every additional day that this war continues is exacting huge and compounding costs to Gazans and all Palestinians” said United Nations Development Programme Administrator Achim Steiner.

At least 370,000 housing units in Gaza have been damaged, including 79,000 destroyed completely, according to the new report by the UNDP and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, which details how Israel’s assault, launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, has devastated the economy of the Palestinian territories, and how the impact will increase the longer the conflict goes on.

After previous Israel-Hamas conflicts, housing was rebuilt at a rate of 992 units year. Even if Israel allows a five-fold increase of construction material to enter Gaza, it would take until 2040 to rebuild the destroyed houses, without repairing the damaged ones, the report said.

In Gaza, the Israeli offensive has virtually shut down the economy, which contracted 81% in the last quarter of 2023. The report said the “productive basis of the economy has been destroyed,” with sectors experienced losses of more than 90%.

Gaza, home to some 2.3 million Palestinians, has been under blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas’ 2007 takeover, putting tight controls on what enters and exits the territory. Even before the war, it faced “hyper-unemployment” of 45%, reaching nearly 63% among younger workers. Since the war began, it lost some 201,000 jobs.

The war has also impacted the West Bank, where for months Israel has imposed restrictions on movement. In 2024, the entire Palestinian economy — including both Gaza and the West Bank — has so far contracted 25.8%, and if the war continues the loss will reach 29% by July, equivalent to $7.6 billion, the report said.

BEIRUT — The militant Palestinian group Hamas praised Columbia's announcement that it would break relations with Israel, saying such a move is a recognition of the suffering of Palestinian people.

In its statement Thursday, Hamas called on other leaders of Latin America to cut their countries’ diplomatic relations with Israel, which it described as “a rogue and Fascist entity that is continuing its crimes against our people.”

Historically, Colombia was one of Israel’s closest partners in Latin America. But relations between the two nations cooled since Gustavo Petro was elected as Colombia’s first leftist president in 2022.

Petro announced his government would break diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday, describing Israel’s siege of Gaza as “genocide.” He previously suspended purchases of weapons from Israel and compared that country’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany. Hamas said it valued Petro's stance highly.

Weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the current war in Gaza and killed some 1,200 people, Petro recalled Colombia’s ambassador to Israel as he criticized the country’s military offensive.