The wife of Ukraine's military spy chief has been poisoned with heavy metals and is undergoing treatment in a hospital, a spokesperson for the agency said on Tuesday.

Marianna Budanova is the wife of Kyrylo Budanov, who heads Ukrainian military intelligence agency GUR, which has been prominently involved in clandestine operations against Russian forces since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

"Yes, I can confirm the information, unfortunately, it is true," GUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov told Reuters, without clarifying when the poisoning took place.

The BBC's Ukrainian service cited Yusov as saying that several GUR officials had also experienced milder symptoms of poisoning.

Budanov's public profile has risen in Ukraine and the West, where he is portrayed as a behind-the-scenes mastermind of operations to strike back at Russia. In Russian media he is a hate figure.

The 37-year-old has himself been the target of several attempts on his life, including a botched car bombing.

If confirmed as deliberate, the purported poisoning of his wife would represent the most serious targeting of a high-profile Ukrainian leadership figure's family member during the 21-month-long war.

The poisoning was first reported by Ukrainian media outlets.

One publication, Babel, cited an unidentified source who said Budanova had been in hospital, and was finishing a course of treatment for the effects of the poisoning.

Another outlet, Ukrainska Pravda, cited an unidentified source who said the poison was likely administered through food.

Moscow has previously blamed Ukrainian secret services for the murders of a pro-war Russian blogger and a pro-war journalist on Russian soil. Ukraine denies involvement in those deaths.

Separately, Russian media has reported that a court in Moscow had arrested Budanov in absentia in April on terrorism charges.

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U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths will travel to the Jordanian capital Amman on Wednesday for talks on the possibility of opening the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Israel.

Located at the intersection of Israel, the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the Kerem Shalom crossing was used to carry more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before the current conflict.

Aid currently being allowed into Gaza comes through the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border, which was designed for pedestrian crossings and not trucks.

"We have said from start we need more than one crossing," Griffiths told a briefing of member states at the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.

"The opportunity to use Kerem Shalom should be explored, and that will be topic in Amman. It would hugely add scope (to the response)."

A Western diplomat said there was no prospect of opening the Kerem Shalom crossing for the moment. The diplomat said that Israel does not want to open the crossing because their troops are located in the area.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Since a fragile truce came into force last week, some 200 trucks have carried aid into Gaza on a daily basis, but the amount of aid is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of its population.

"We know that more humanitarian aid should be delivered in Gaza. We know how we could increase it, but there are constraints beyond our control," Griffiths said.

"We know that the people of Gaza need much more from us."

Since the truce, the United Nations has scaled up the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and sent aid to some northern areas that had been largely cut off for weeks due to Israeli bombing.

"We need to have reliable and scalable aid delivery mechanisms, that include all humanitarian partners - including NGOs," Griffiths said.

"We are refining prioritisation, advocating for more entry points and the resumption of (the) private sector."

Indian rescuers on Tuesday pulled out the first of 41 construction workers trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas for 17 days, hours after drilling through the debris of rock, concrete and earth to reach them, officials said.

The evacuation of the men to safety began more than six hours after rescuers broke through to end an ordeal that began early on Nov. 12 when the tunnel caved in.

"The first one is out," a rescue official told reporters outside the 4.5 km (3 mile) tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

Ambulances with their lights flashing lined up at the mouth of the tunnel to transport the workers to a hospital about 30 km away.

The men have been getting food, water, light, oxygen and medicines through a pipe but efforts to dig a tunnel to rescue them with high-powered drilling machines were frustrated by a series of snags.

The tunnel is part of the $1.5 billion Char Dham highway, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's most ambitious projects, aimed at connecting four Hindu pilgrimage sites through an 890- km network of roads.

Authorities have not said what caused the cave-in but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.

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The conservative U.S. political network led by billionaire Charles Koch on Tuesday endorsed Nikki Haley for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, giving the former South Carolina governor a boost among party rivals struggling to make a dent against frontrunner Donald Trump.

The influential group, which pushes for tax cuts and less government regulation, has made clear that beating former president Trump in the primaries is a top priority, as they think he would lose the November 2024 election to President Joe Biden. Biden beat incumbent Trump in the 2020 White House race.

"We would support a candidate capable of turning the page on Washington’s toxic culture – and a candidate who can win. And last night, we concluded that analysis," the Koch group, Americans for Prosperity Action, said in a statement.

"That candidate is Nikki Haley."

The group said its internal polling confirms anecdotal reports from activists on the ground on what they are hearing from voters in states with early presidential nominating contests.

They show Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, is in the best position to defeat Trump in the Republican primary, it said. Internal polling also "consistently shows" that Haley is the strongest candidate by far to beat Biden in a general election, it said.

Public opinion polls show Haley battling with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for a distant second place behind Trump.

The super-PAC has raised over $70 million to spend on political races, an official with the group said in July.

"In sharp contrast to recent elections that were dominated by the negative baggage of Donald Trump and in which good candidates lost races that should have been won, Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot, winning the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win," it said.

The group promised Haley "the full weight and scope of AFP Action’s unmatched grassroots army and resources" in her bid to become the next U.S. president.

U.S. President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden on Tuesday offered to testify publicly in the House Republican impeachment inquiry of his father's Democratic administration, while a leading lawmaker stuck to his demand of testimony behind closed doors.

Escalating a months-long investigation across three congressional committees, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden in September, which focuses on Hunter Biden's business dealings.

House Republicans allege Biden and his family improperly traded access to Biden's office as vice president in President Barack Obama's administration. The White House denies wrongdoing.

As part of the inquiry, the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed Hunter Biden, 53, to appear before the panel in a closed-door interview on Dec. 13. The panel also subpoenaed the president's brother, his late son's widow and Hunter Biden's business associates, among others.

The House Oversight Committee has held one public hearing as part of the probe, instead conducting most of their interviews in private.

Hunter Biden's lawyer on Tuesday blasted the panel's probe as "a fishing expedition" and an "empty investigation," telling the panel chairman a public hearing was the only way to prevent "your cloaked, one-sided process."

"We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door," attorney Abbe Lowell wrote committee chairman James Comer.

Hunter Biden would appear for a public hearing on Dec. 13 or any other date in December that they could arrange, his lawyer said.

Comer said in a statement that the subpoena required Hunter Biden to appear for a deposition on Dec. 13, but added that he should also have a chance to testify publicly at another time.

"Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else. That won't stand with House Republicans," Comer said.

The White House has called the investigation a "smear campaign" that "has turned up zero evidence."

Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has cheered on the impeachment probe. During his four years in the Oval Office, he became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. He was acquitted both times by the Senate.

Hunter Biden in October pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied about his drug use while buying a handgun, in the first-ever criminal prosecution of a sitting U.S. president's child.

Special Counsel David Weiss brought those charges against Hunter Biden after an earlier proposed plea deal unraveled under questioning from a judge. Weiss is still investigating whether the younger Biden can be charged for tax law violations.

The younger Biden earlier this month sought a federal court's permission to subpoena documents from Trump and top Justice Department officials in his administration as part of his defense against federal gun charges.

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Rupert Murdoch is set to be questioned under oath on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of voting technology company Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp (FOXA.O) over coverage of debunked vote-rigging claims involving the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a person familiar with the matter said.

Murdoch will be deposed in Los Angeles, according to that person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The deposition does not appear on the public docket for the case.

Murdoch, 92, had been the chairman of Fox Corp and News Corp (NWSA.O) before the companies announced in September that he was stepping down, becoming chairman emeritus of each company as of mid-November. As part of the transition, his son Lachlan Murdoch became the sole chairman of News Corp and continues as the chair and chief executive officer of Fox.

Representatives for Fox News and Murdoch did not respond to requests for comment about the deposition. A representative for Fox Corp declined to comment.

Florida-based Smartmatic is seeking damages from Fox Corp, Fox News and five individuals: Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who were lawyers for Republican former President Donald Trump; and Fox hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.

Smartmatic alleges in its lawsuit filed in state court in New York that the defendants knowingly spread false claims that the company's software was used to flip votes in favor of Democrat Joe Biden and against Trump.

Fox has denied the allegations made by Smartmatic.

In previous statements, Fox has said that the network had a right to report on highly newsworthy allegations of voter fraud, that its job was to inform the public, and that airing fraud claims was protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for press freedom. It also has called Smartmatic's damages claims "outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis."

Murdoch is not a named defendant in the case. But by establishing that he was involved in making decisions about Fox's coverage, Smartmatic would have a better chance of proving that Fox Corp is liable. In order to prevail in a defamation case, Smartmatic must prove that Fox knowingly spread false information or recklessly disregarded the truth, the standard known as "actual malice."

A New York state appeals court in February rejected Fox's bid to dismiss the case, finding that Smartmatic had alleged in "detailed fashion" how Fox "effectively endorsed and participated" in defamation.

Fox Corp and Fox News in April settled for $787.5 million another defamation lawsuit, brought by voting technology firm Dominion Voting Systems. It was the largest-ever defamation settlement publicly announced by an American media company, according to legal experts. Rupert Murdoch sat for a deposition in that case as well.

Dominion had accused Fox of ruining its business by airing claims that its machines were used to rig the 2020 election. Fox said in a statement at the time of the settlement that it acknowledged "the court's ruling finding certain claims about Dominion to be false" and that the settlement reflected "Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards."

Senior Biden administration officials met with RSV vaccine makers this week to underscore the need for manufacturers such as Sanofi (SASY.PA) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) to urgently meet demand as winter approaches, the White House said on Tuesday.

At a meeting at the White House on Monday, officials and manufacturers also agreed to plan now to meet next year's demand for the vaccines targeting respiratory syncytial virus, which generally causes mild, cold-like symptoms but can develop into severe illness in infants and older adults.

"Monday's meeting follows numerous in-person and virtual meetings to seek ways manufacturers can make more RSV immunizations available for infants," the White House said in a statement.

Representatives for Sanofi and AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Separately, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had expedited the release of more than 77,000 additional doses of Sanofi and AstraZeneca's RSV drug Beyfortus which was approved earlier this year to prevent the disease in infants and toddlers.

RSV cases in the U.S. began a sharp upward trend in the middle of October and were at the highest level since January last winter with 4,952 cases detected through testing in the week ended Nov. 4, according to the CDC website.

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A watchdog overseeing the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will conduct a "special inquiry" into to the agency leadership's handling of sexual harassment and other inappropriate conduct, a representative told Reuters on Tuesday.

The FDIC Office of Inspector General also plans to begin a "new evaluation project" to review reforms made since a prior investigation completed in 2020 into sexual misconduct in the FDIC workforce, the OIG's office said.

FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg this month faced calls for his resignation following Wall Street Journal reporting which said a toxic culture of misogyny and discrimination persisted among the agency's male-dominated staff, causing numerous women to quit.

Peru's economy minister on Tuesday said that the Andean country's mining sector was preventing the economy from sinking into a deeper repression, and said progress kick-starting projects was a key priority in the near term.

"If it weren't for mining, we would probably be facing a larger recession this year," Economy Minister Alex Contreras said at a conference as the nation prepares to launch a package of stimulus measures to turn back to growth.

Contreras said the first three measures of more than two dozen to attract mining investment and up production would be published later in the day.

Peru, the world's No. 2 copper producer, fell into a recession earlier this year due to the El Nino weather phenomenon, lower private investment and lingering effects from anti-government protests late 2022 and early this year.

Contreras added that the mining nation was aiming to consolidate an industry "hub" in the country's south, highlighting existing projects such as copper mines Las Bambas, Antapaccay and Cerro Verde.

A senior Hezbollah politician said on Tuesday he hoped a truce would continue and his Iran-backed group had started paying compensation to people who had suffered losses during weeks of Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.

Following the start of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in their worst hostilities since 2006, with Hezbollah attacking Israeli positions at the border and Israel launching air and artillery strikes.

But the cross-border violence has ceased since Hamas - a Hezbollah ally - and Israel reached a temporary truce on Friday.

"God willing, the truce will continue," senior Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said after a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

The violence at the Israel-Lebanese border has forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the frontier to flee their homes.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed around 100 people - 80 of them Hezbollah fighters. Hostilities spiralled following the Oct. 7 Hamas raid from the Gaza Strip into Israel, setting off a conflict that spread around the region.

Citing a Hezbollah survey of damage done by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, Fadlallah said 37 residential buildings had been totally destroyed and 11 more completely burned. Another 1,500 homes across the south had suffered varying degrees of damage.

Fadlallah said Mikati had agreed the government would pay compensation, including for destroyed cars and olive groves. This would be separate from compensation to be paid by Hezbollah, he added.

"It is true that we, in Hezbollah, began paying compensation ... but this does not mean at all that the government is not concerned, indeed it is concerned, and (Mikati) was very responsive," Fadlallah said.

Hezbollah said it spent more than $300 million on compensation and reconstruction following the 2006 war, during which Israeli air strikes laid waste to swathes of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut.

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Wall Street's main indexes were subdued on Tuesday after a strong run of gains in November as investors remained cautious ahead of Federal Reserve officials' comments that could offer some clues on the interest rate path.

A rally on Wall Street in November came to a halt on Monday, with the markets taking a post-Thanksgiving pause and watching out for fresh policy cues after data signaling easing inflation bolstered hopes the Fed was likely done raising interest rates.

Still, all three major indexes were on course for monthly gains after three straight months of losses. The rebound has also brought the S&P 500 (.SPX) within a very close range of its 2023 intra-day high.

"The market is expecting the Fed to cut rates. The Fed has not said anything about cutting rates and I think they will reiterate that stance throughout their discussions the rest of the week," said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist at Murphy & Sylvest.

Multiple Fed policy voting members are scheduled to speak during the day, including Board Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman. Market participants will closely monitor their views as the focus shifts to the timing of a potential rate cut.

Money markets have almost fully priced in a pause in rate hikes at the December meeting, with expectations of at least a 25-basis point rate cut in May 2024 standing at nearly 50%, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool.

Personal consumption expenditure data - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - and the "Beige Book", a snapshot of the U.S. economy, are due later this week. They will likely show how the economy is faring under tighter monetary conditions.

At 9:37 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was up 1.15 points at 35,334.62, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was down 6.46 points, or 0.14%, at 4,543.97, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) was down 11.87 points, or 0.08%, at 14,229.15.

Ten of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were in the red, with rate-sensitive real estate stocks (.SPLRCR) down 0.5% and leading declines.

Murphy & Sylvest's Nolte said investors were "digesting very, very strong gains for the month of November," referring to the declines.

Among single stocks, Zscaler (ZS.O) fell 3.5% as the cloud security firm's quarterly billings fell short of some analysts' estimates, overshadowing its strong forecast and profit beat.

Micron Technology (MU.O) shares fell 3% after the chip firm updated its first-quarter forecast. Boeing (BA.N) added 0.6% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the aerospace company to "outperform" from "sector perform" and set a Street-high price target.

U.S.-listed shares of PDD Holdings (PDD.O) jumped 18.5% after the Chinese e-commerce firm beat third-quarter revenue estimates.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.92-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.63-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 9 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 27 new highs and 39 new lows.

Interpol has come a long way in preventing abuse by Russia and others of its "red notice" system where a country asks others to arrest a suspect, and cannot do much more for now to improve it, the agency's head said on Tuesday.

Rights groups, legal experts and others have long said countries like Russia and China abuse the red notice system by using it to get political critics arrested abroad.

Over the years Interpol, the global police coordination body with 195 member states, has increased checks to prevent abusive red notices, and it now screens all requests for a red notice before issuing them. More than 10,000 are issued a year.

"If I got good advice for example from NGOs (on) what else I can do, I would implement that," Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock told Reuters in an interview on the margins of his organisation's annual General Assembly, which is being held in Vienna this year.

Stock, who is German, has another year in his mandate after nine years in the post.

"We have a small percentage, maybe 2%, 3% of tricky notices. The overwhelming majority concerns murderers, rapists, drug smugglers and what have you," he said.

"Have we made one or the other mistakes perhaps where we had to correct a decision? Yes. I'm not saying it's perfect but I'm saying it's very robust," he said.

Stock avoided naming and shaming individual countries but said Russia is the worst offender. Rights groups have long accused Moscow of filing by far the largest number of abusive requests.

Moscow says it follows due legal process and depicts many prominent critics such as jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny as criminals.

"Of course we see geopolitical tensions are rising. Of course we know there is no international definition of terrorism. That is not going away," Stock said, adding that Interpol has increased the number of languages in which it can monitor the "global situation".

"Maybe AI (artificial intelligence) will help in the future. We are now also working on implementing AI solutions that are helping us in that monitoring. So the process is continuing but the major cornerstones are established," he said.

U.S. stocks opened lower on Tuesday after a strong run of gains in November as investors remained cautious ahead of Federal Reserve officials' comments that could offer some clues on the interest rate path.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 1.34 points at the open to 35,332.13.

The S&P 500 (.SPX) opened lower by 4.88 points, or 0.11%, at 4,545.55, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 16.39 points, or 0.12%, to 14,224.63 at the opening bell.

Indian rescuers on Tuesday pulled out the first of 41 construction workers trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas for 17 days, hours after drilling through the debris of rock, concrete and earth to reach them, officials said.

The evacuation of the men to safety began more than six hours after rescuers broke through to end an ordeal that began early on Nov. 12 when the tunnel caved in.

"The first one is out," a rescue official told reporters outside the 4.5 km (3 mile) tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

Ambulances with their lights flashing lined up at the mouth of the tunnel to transport the workers to a hospital about 30 km away.

The men have been getting food, water, light, oxygen and medicines through a pipe but efforts to dig a tunnel to rescue them with high-powered drilling machines were frustrated by a series of snags.

The tunnel is part of the $1.5 billion Char Dham highway, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's most ambitious projects, aimed at connecting four Hindu pilgrimage sites through an 890- km network of roads.

Authorities have not said what caused the cave-in but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.

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The wife of Ukraine's military spy chief has been poisoned with heavy metals and is undergoing treatment in a hospital, a spokesperson for the agency told Reuters on Tuesday.

Marianna Budanova is the wife of Kyrylo Budanov, who heads Ukrainian military intelligence agency GUR, which has been prominently involved in clandestine operations against Russian forces throughout the 21-month war.

"Yes, I can confirm the information, unfortunately, it is true," GUR spokesman Andriy Yusov said, without clarifying when the incident took place.

Budanov's public profile has surged in Ukraine and the West, where he is portrayed as a behind-the-scenes mastermind of efforts to strike back at Russia. In Russian media he is a hate figure.

The 37-year-old has himself been the target of several failed attempts on his life, including a botched car bombing.

If confirmed as deliberate, the alleged poisoning of his wife would represent the most serious targeting of a high-profile Ukrainian leadership figure's family member since Moscow began its invasion in February last year.

The poisoning was first reported by Ukrainian media outlets.

One publication, Babel, cited an unnamed source who said Budanova had been in hospital, and was finishing a course of treatment for the effects of the poisoning.

Ukrainska Pravda cited a source saying the poison had likely been administered in her food and that several other GUR staff members had also been poisoned.

Moscow has previously blamed Ukrainian secret services for the murders of a pro-war Russian blogger and a pro-war journalist on Russian soil. Kyiv denies involvement in those deaths.

Separately, Russian media has reported that a court in Moscow had arrested Budanov in absentia in April on terrorism charges.

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U.S. annual home price growth accelerated again in September, underscoring the rebound of the housing market as it entered the final quarter of the year, data showed on Tuesday.

Home prices rose 6.1% on a year-over-year basis in September, up from an upwardly revised 5.8% increase in the prior month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said.

On a quarterly basis, annual house prices increased 5.5% between the third quarter of last year and the comparative period this year.

Home prices rose 2.1% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter of this year, reflecting the reacceleration since June that has taken place following a period of softness in the market.

The report also showed prices rose moderately on a month-over-month basis, in line with recent trends. Prices were up 0.6% in September, compared with an upwardly revised 0.7% month-over-month increase in August.

The cost of mortgage loans fell last week to a two-month low after topping out at almost 8% in October, the highest level in more than 20 years. Despite the dip, housing inventory remains low, which has kept a floor under prices paid for properties.

The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark overnight lending rate unchanged earlier this month after raising its policy rate from the near-zero level in March 2022 to the 5.25%-5.50% range in July 2023.

Investors do not expect another rate increase and are currently forecasting a rate cut in May of next year, given the Fed has indicated it would raise interest rates again only if progress in controlling inflation faltered.

Annual house prices rose the most in the New England and Middle Atlantic regions in August, with gains of 11.4% and 8.3%, respectively, the FHFA data showed.

A separate report on Tuesday bolstered the view that the housing market is ramping up again, with the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index posting a 3.9% increase in September on an annual basis. That compared to a 2.5% rise in August.

Prices in Detroit accelerated the most on a city basis, overtaking Chicago, which had held the top spot for fourth straight months, the Case-Shiller data showed.

U.S. stocks were poised to open lower on Tuesday after a strong run of gains in November as investors remained cautious ahead of Federal Reserve officials' comments that could offer some clues on the interest rate path.

A rally on Wall Street in November came to a halt on Monday, with the markets taking a post-Thanksgiving pause and watching out for fresh policy cues after data signaling easing inflation bolstered hopes the Fed was likely done raising interest rates.

Still, all three major indexes were on course for monthly gains after three straight months of losses. The rebound has also brought the S&P 500 (.SPX) within a very close range of its 2023 intra-day high.

"The market is expecting the Fed to cut rates. The Fed has not said anything about cutting rates and I think they will reiterate that stance throughout their discussions the rest of the week," said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist at Murphy & Sylvest.

At 8:29 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 18 points, or 0.05%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 7.75 points, or 0.17%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 34.25 points, or 0.21%.

Nolte said investors were "digesting very, very strong gains for the month of November," referring to the halt in the rally.

Multiple Fed policy voting members are scheduled to speak during the day, including Board Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman. Market participants will closely monitor their views as the focus shifts to the timing of a potential rate cut.

Money markets have almost fully priced in a pause in rate hikes at the December meeting, with expectations of at least a 25-basis point rate cut in May 2024 standing at nearly 50%, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool.

Personal consumption expenditure data - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - and the "Beige Book", a snapshot of the U.S. economy, are due later this week, which will likely show how the economy is faring under tighter monetary conditions.

On the economic data front, the Conference Board's consumer confidence survey is due for release at 10:00 a.m ET, which is expected to show consumer confidence eased in November.

Among single stocks, Zscaler (ZS.O) fell 4.8% before the bell as the cloud security firm's quarterly billings fell short of some analysts' estimates, overshadowing its strong forecast and profit beat.

Boeing (BA.N) added 1.7% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the aerospace company to "outperform" from "sector perform" and set a Street-high price target.

Affirm Holdings (AFRM.O) gained 1.9%, following its 12% jump in the previous session on Cyber Monday spending boost, and as Jefferies upgraded the payments platform to "hold."

U.S.-listed shares of PDD Holdings (PDD.O) jumped 14.2% after the Chinese e-commerce firm beat third-quarter revenue estimates on a boost from heavy discounting.

Greece's government on Tuesday accused Britain of showing "a lack of respect" by abruptly cancelling a meeting between their leaders at short notice in a dispute over ancient Greek sculptures brought to Britain in the early 19th century.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a planned wide-ranging meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis after the latter raised the decades-old demand for the return of the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum.

"This is not common, we are trying to find a precedent and we can't," said Pavlos Marinakis, a spokesman for the Greek government. "It shows a lack of respect to the prime minister but also to the country he represents."

Greece has repeatedly asked the British Museum to permanently return the 2,500-year-old sculptures that British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the Parthenon temple in the early 19th century when he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

About half the surviving marble works are in London, and the rest in a museum under the Acropolis in Athens.

Appearing on the BBC over the weekend, Mitsotakis compared the separation of the sculptures to cutting the Mona Lisa in half, a characterisation rejected by British government.

Marinakis said the planned talks between the two leaders were meant to have been on global issues, including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, migration and the climate crisis.

Sunak's decision to cancel the meeting was also criticised by some British opposition parties and a campaign group backed by British politicians from different parties who want to resolve the issue.

The group, the Parthenon Project, has proposed a deal that would see the sculptures reunified in Athens - without Britain and Greece needing to agree on who owns them.

Ed Vaizey, a former Conservative culture minister who advises the group, said that Sunak's action was a "plot twist" given Britain's previous stance that resolving the issue was a matter for the British Museum itself.

"The prime minister has put himself at the front and centre of row that he didn't really need to put himself at the front and centre of," Vaizey told Sky News.

"I don't think the prime minister needed really to intervene in this way and it hasn't particularly helped our relationships with Greece."

Sunak's office on Monday said Britain's relationship with Greece was "hugely important" and that the two countries needed to work together on global challenges.

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U.S. President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden on Tuesday offered to testify publicly to a House Republican impeachment inquiry of his father's Democratic administration, a dramatic escalation in a partisan brawl.

In a response to a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee, Hunter Biden's lawyer blasted the panel's probe as "a fishing expedition" and "empty investigation," telling the panel chairman a public inquiry was the only way to prevent "your cloaked, one-sided process."

"We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door," attorney Abbe Lowell wrote committee chairman James Comer in the letter proposing a Dec. 13 public hearing.

Representatives for the committee and Hunter Biden could not be immediately reached for comment on the reports.

The global response to AIDS is "under threat" because of an unprecedented backlash against human rights that is stigmatizing the groups most at risk of HIV infection, the head of the United Nations AIDS programme has warned.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said countries where there are laws against LGBTQ people, or which criminalise sex work or personal drug use, are largely the places seeing a rise or plateau in new infections.

Stigma, discrimination and a lack of comprehensive sex education was also an issue, she said.

"This pushback - anti-human rights, anti-democratic, anti-gender equality - has put our work under threat," she told Reuters in an interview in London ahead of the launch of a new report from the organization she leads.

UNAIDS is aiming for a target of ending the disease as a public health threat by 2030, which Byanyima said was still achievable, with a number of countries, particularly in Africa on track or close to their targets. But in other regions like eastern Europe and north Africa, infections are on the rise.

"We are saying it can be achieved. That's not the same as saying it will be achieved," she said.

Globally, there were 39 million people living with AIDS in 2022, including 1.3 million who were newly infected. Almost 30 million of them are getting treatment, but there were still 630,000 deaths due to AIDS-related illnesses last year, according to UNAIDS data.

The new report calls for the work of community organizations to be recognised and funded to help fight stigma and the wider backlash, under the title "Let communities lead".

Byanyima said there were also other challenges, such as funding and "big battles" with pharmaceutical companies to ensure that new products can be made available in low-income countries at an affordable price.

A row between Britain and Greece over the ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures escalated on Tuesday, with both sides blaming the other for the cancellation of a planned meeting between their two leaders.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled Tuesday's meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis after his office said the two sides had previously agreed that it should not be used as a public platform "to relitigate long, long settled matters".

A Greek government official speaking on condition of anonymity said that there was no such agreement. Earlier a Greek government spokesman called the cancellation unprecedented and disrespectful.

"It's simply the case that if assurances are given and they're not adhered to, that there are consequences for that," Sunak's spokesman told reporters.

Greece has repeatedly asked the British Museum to permanently return the 2,500-year-old sculptures that British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the Parthenon temple in the early 19th century when he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

About half the surviving marble works are in London, and the rest in a museum under the Acropolis in Athens.

Appearing on the BBC over the weekend, Mitsotakis compared the separation of the sculptures to cutting the Mona Lisa in half, a characterisation rejected by the British government.

Both Britain and Greece said that the dispute jeopardised the opportunity to discuss global issues, including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, migration and the climate crisis.

However, Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis later said his country did not want to escalate the row or let it spoil normally good relations between the countries.

Sunak's decision to cancel the meeting was also criticised by some British opposition parties and a campaign group backed by British politicians from different parties who want to resolve the issue.

The group, the Parthenon Project, has proposed a deal that would see the sculptures reunified in Athens - without Britain and Greece needing to agree on who owns them.

Ed Vaizey, a former Conservative culture minister who advises the group, said that Sunak's action was a "plot twist" given Britain's previous stance that resolving the issue was a matter for the British Museum itself.

"The prime minister has put himself at the front and centre of row that he didn't really need to put himself at the front and centre of," Vaizey told Sky News. "I don't think the prime minister needed really to intervene in this way and it hasn't particularly helped our relationships with Greece."

Britain's government has long cited a law that prevents the British Museum from disposing of items in its collection in most circumstances.

Asked if the government was concerned that other countries might also seek restitution of items if a deal was reached to return the marbles, Sunak's spokesperson said: "We do think it is potentially a slippery slope, and that's not something that we would support."

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Carting heavy cans of water through muddy streets, searching mounds of rubble for clothes, mourning lost relatives and homes - Gazans reprieved from Israeli bombardment during the truce with Hamas were still facing the daily hardships of war.

At a water station in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, people filled plastic containers and lugged them to homes or shelters using carts pulled by donkeys or by hand, bicycles, a shopping trolley, a wheelbarrow, even a wheelchair.

"The struggle for water happens daily, since we were first displaced until now. Even during the ceasefire, they didn't find a solution to the water problem," said Rami al-Rizek, displaced with his family from their home in Gaza City.

Now in its fifth day, the pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas has allowed an increased number of aid trucks to enter Gaza from Egypt, but the humanitarian needs are so immense that many Gazans have felt little or no impact.

"Whether there is a truce or not, we still have no electricity, no water, and none of life's basic necessities," said Muath Hamdan, another man waiting at the water station.

It had rained, and a steady stream of children and adults trudged through mud and puddles in sandals and flip flops on their way to the water station. The quest for water was the main activity that could be seen on the streets.

In a different area of Khan Younis, Maryam Abu Rjaileh had returned to her home, reduced to rubble by an Israeli air strike, to search for clothes for her children. The family are now sheltering at a school, in a classroom shared with many others.

"We see our homes getting destroyed, our dreams getting destroyed, we see the efforts we put into our homes all destroyed," said Abu Rjaileh.

"How can I describe our situation? They gave us a four-day truce, what are these four days? We come here, feel sorry for ourselves and turn back."

In another part of town, Yasser Abu Shamaleh paced over the pile of debris that used to be a block where many of his relatives lived. He said more than 30 of them had been killed - his parents, sisters and brothers, nieces, nephews and cousins.

"Two things made me come to this area. First, my cousin is still under the rubble and no-one has been able to get him out. Second, my painful memories," he said.

Abu Shamaleh, who said he survived because he, his wife and their five children live in a different building, picked up chunks of concrete and tossed them aside. A rag doll could be seen in the rubble.

"As much as you try to retrieve things, it's useless. We need machinery and tools to get things out," he said.

"The truce is the time to lift the rubble and search for all the missing people and bury them. We honour the dead by burying them. What use is the truce if the bodies remain under the rubble?" he said.

The war began when militants from Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, including babies and children, and seizing about 240 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

Israel responded with aerial bombardment and a ground assault on Gaza, killing more than 15,000 people, around 40% of them children, according to Gazan health officials.

Another Khan Younis resident, Ahmed al-Najjar, said of the truce: "Four days are not enough, and forty days are not enough, and four years will not be enough to get over the pain."

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Ten-month-old Kfir Bibas has spent more than 50 days of his young life in captivity in Gaza and, according to Israel, has been handed over by Hamas to another Palestinian militant group in a possible complication of efforts to free him.

On Tuesday, members of his extended family pleaded with the Israeli government and mediators of an Israel-Hamas truce from Egypt and Qatar to help get him, his parents and brother released.

Hamas infiltrators seized baby Kfir, four-year-old Ariel and their parents Yarden and Shiri after bursting into southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and prompting an Israeli military offensive that has killed more than 15,000 people according to Gaza health authorities. Kfir is the youngest of the 240 hostages Israel says were captured.

Video of the incident showed a terrified Shiri clutching the children in a blanket as they were bundled into captivity. Another clip showed Yarden with a head injury from hammer blows, Ofri Bibas, Yarden's sister, said.

She told reporters the family was not to be included in the expected release of 10 hostages on Tuesday. Relatives of repatriated hostages have been informed in advance by authorities.

Hamas has freed 50 Israeli women and children hostages, along with 19 foreign hostages, since Friday as part of the truce in which Israel has released 150 Palestinian prisoners and increased aid shipments into Gaza.

Israel's chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said in a briefing that Kfir, Ariel and their parents were being held by a Palestinian faction other than Hamas. He said Hamas bore exclusive responsibility for them.

Another military spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee, said the family was in the area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Hamas has not given the locations or condition of the estimated 170 people it still holds.

"The understanding that we will not, for now, get the hug we had so hoped for leaves us speechless," the Bibas' extended family said in a statement to the media.

Jimmy Miller, a cousin, told Channel 12 TV: "Kfir is only 10 months old. He is a child who still doesn't even know how to say 'Mommy'. He still isn't eating solid food. He doesn't have the ability to survive there.

"We in the family are not managing to function ... The family hasn't slept for a long, long time already - 51 days."

Last week, Yosi Shnaider, another cousin, described the hostage family as "simple people who thought they were going to live in heaven" - a reference to Kibbutz Nir Oz, the bucolic border village from where they were seized.

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The heads of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel's Mossad met Qatar's prime minister in Doha on Tuesday to build on the two-day extension of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, a source briefed on the visit said.

The meeting was "to build on the progress of the extended humanitarian pause agreement and to initiate further discussions about the next phase of a potential deal," the source told Reuters.

The outcome of the talks, which were also attended by Egyptian officials, was unclear, the source added.

David Barnea, head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, CIA Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met one day after Qatar announced the two-day extension of an original four-day truce deal in Gaza that had been due to expire overnight.

Qatar, where several political leaders of Hamas are based, has been leading negotiations between the Palestinian militant group and Israel.

The truce has brought the first respite to the Gaza Strip in seven weeks during which Israel bombed the territory heavily in response to a violent rampage on Oct. 7 by Hamas gunmen who killed around 1,200 people and took 240 captives.

Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza. Health authorities in Gaza say Israel's bombardment of the tiny, densely populated territory has so far killed more than 15,000 people, around 40% of them children.

Barnea and Burns were previously in Qatar to meet Sheikh Mohammed on Nov 9.

During the first four days of the truce, Hamas fighters released 50 Israeli women and children who had been taken hostage. In return, Israel released 150 security detainees from its jails, all women and teenagers.

As part of the two-day truce extension Hamas has agreed to release an additional 10 Israeli women and children each day.

So far, there is no indication that Hamas is willing to release any Israeli men or military personnel among those taken captive.

NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg urged members of the alliance on Tuesday to "stay the course" in supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia's invasion as both the United States and European Union struggle to agree on further military aid.

"It's our obligation to ensure that we provide Ukraine with the weapons they need," Stoltenberg told reporters as he arrived for a gathering of foreign ministers from NATO countries at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels.

"We just have to stay the course. This is about also our security interests," the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said.

His remarks come as the fate of a $60 billion U.S. military aid package proposed by the Biden administration is in limbo due to opposition from some Republicans in Congress.

Administration officials have expressed confidence they will get the package through, saying a majority of Republicans and Democrats in Congress still back support for Kyiv.

Stoltenberg also voiced optimism.

"I'm confident that the United States will continue to provide support and because it is in the security interests of the United States to do so. And it's also in line with what we have agreed," he said.

Arriving in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said NATO ministers would be "strongly reaffirming our support for Ukraine as it continues to face Russia's war of aggression".

The meeting takes place amid gloom in Ukraine that a major counter-offensive launched earlier this year against Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces has failed to make substantial progress.

Meanwhile, a proposal by the European Union's foreign policy chief to allocate up to 20 billion euros ($21.90 billion) over four years for military aid to Ukraine has run into resistance among the bloc's member states, which would have to provide the cash.

Stoltenberg pointed out, though, that EU members Germany and the Netherlands have announced multi-billion-euro packages of bilateral military support in recent weeks. He said the war in Ukraine had significance far beyond its borders.

"It will be a tragedy for Ukrainians if President Putin wins but it will also be dangerous for us," he said.

"Then the message to all authoritarian leaders - not only in Moscow, but also in Beijing - is that when they violate international law, when they invade another country, when they use force, they get what they want."

($1 = 0.9134 euros)

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Members of Russia's LGBTQ community fear a court ruling due on Thursday will label them "extremists" and pave the way for arrests and prosecutions of those who speak out for gay and transgender people.

Russia's justice ministry asked the Supreme Court this month to recognise what it called "the international LGBT social movement" as extremist and to ban its activities.

The ministry said that "various signs and manifestations of extremist orientation, including the incitement of social and religious discord" had been identified in the activities of Russia's LGBT movement, without giving examples.

The move is part of a pattern of restrictive measures with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity, including laws outlawing the promotion of "non-traditional" sexual relations and banning legal or medical changes of gender.

"Of course it’s very alarming, and I don’t remember the threat ever being so serious and real," Alexei Sergeyev, an LGBT activist in St Petersburg, told Reuters TV in an interview.

He linked the justice ministry's request to the presidential election due next March in which Vladimir Putin is expected to seek, and win, another six-year term:

"If it didn't have a propaganda effect, if it didn't have some level of support, it's unlikely that anyone would do it."

Putin, with support from the Orthodox Church, has long sought to project Russia as a guardian of traditional morality, in contrast with Western societies that he portrays as decadent in their tolerance of "gay parades" and acceptance of "dozens of genders".

The justice ministry publishes a list of more than 100 "extremist" groups banned in Russia. Previous listings, for example of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious movement and organisations linked to opposition politician Alexei Navalny, have served as a prelude to arrests.

Sergei Troshin, an openly gay municipal deputy in St Petersburg for the opposition Yabloko party, said that, once the new designation was in place, security officials seeking advancement were likely to open criminal cases. He said the prospect was already spreading fear.

"Every morning I'll expect that, at 6 a.m., people will come to search me, ring the bell, knock on the door very hard, as they usually like to do. There'll be a search and they'll tell me: 'A criminal case has been opened against you for participation in the activities of an extremist organisation,' with all the ensuing consequences."

Sergeev said he feared that activities designed to help LGBTQ people, such as psychological and legal support or even "meetings where you can just sit and drink tea", would be curtailed.

"This will all be so underground that, unfortunately, I'm sure there are many people who won't be able to get help," he said.

"They will either commit suicide or simply be in some terrible state - their life will be shortened and their health will deteriorate, they will drink and smoke more, and so on, somehow trying to escape from this reality."

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U.S. stock index futures inched lower on Tuesday, as investors awaited comments from a host of Federal Reserve officials for clues on the interest rate path, while Zscaler shares fell on disappointing quarterly billings.

A rally on Wall Street in November came to a halt on Monday, with the markets taking a post-Thanksgiving pause and watching out for fresh policy cues after data signaling slowing inflation bolstered hopes the Fed was likely done raising interest rates.

Still, all three major indexes are on course for monthly gains after three straight months of losses. The rebound has also brought the S&P 500 (.SPX) within a very close range of its 2023 intra-day high. At 7:01 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 10 points, or 0.03%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.75 points, or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 15 points, or 0.09%.

"Markets are going through a 'one step forward, one step back' motion at present...despite investors increasingly taking the view that central banks are done with raising interest rates in the current cycle," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell in a note.

"The problem is that (the) representatives of major central banks do not want to draw a definitive line in the sand."

Multiple Fed policy voting members are scheduled to speak during the day, including Board Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman. Market participants will closely monitor their views as the focus shifts to the timing of a potential rate cut.

Money markets have almost fully priced in a pause in rate hikes at the December meeting, with expectations of at least a 25-basis point rate cut in May 2024 standing at nearly 50%, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool.

Personal consumption expenditure data - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - and the "Beige Book", a snapshot of the U.S. economy, are due later this week, which will likely show how the economy is faring under tighter monetary conditions.

On the economic data front, the Conference Board's consumer confidence survey is due for release at 10:00 a.m ET, which is expected to show consumer confidence eased in November.

Shares of Zscaler (ZS.O) fell 5.8% before the bell as the cloud security firm's quarterly billings fell short of some analysts' estimates, overshadowing its strong forecast and profit beat.

Boeing (BA.N) added 1.8% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the aerospace company to "outperform" from "sector perform" and set a Street-high price target.

Affirm Holdings (AFRM.O) gained 2.9%, following its 12% jump in the previous session on Cyber Monday spending boost, and as Jefferies upgraded the payments platform to "hold."

U.S.-listed shares of PDD Holdings (PDD.O) jumped 15.1% after the Chinese e-commerce firm beat third-quarter revenue estimates on a boost from heavy discounting.

Israel held a meeting at the U.N. in Geneva late on Monday to raise awareness of sexual violence against women perpetrated during Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks amid criticism that the global body has kept quiet about the issue.

Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into sexual violence during the most deadly attack on Israel in its history, including rape, after evidence emerged pointing to sexual crimes, such as victims found disrobed and mutilated.

Hamas denies the abuses.

The U.N. human rights office said it has condemned the Oct. 7 attacks as "heinous, brutal and shocking" and that Israel has so far not granted its monitors access to the country.

The private event, attended by diplomats, rights groups and U.N. agencies, is the first Israel-organised event outside the country to address acts of sexual violence by Hamas, which Israel's diplomatic mission described as "widespread".

U.N. rights bodies "downplayed" and "minimised" the sexual violence, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, an Associate Professor at the Bar-Ilan University, who spoke at the event.

"We expected a clear and loud statement that says that there is no justification for using the bodies of women as a weapon of war. None of this came up until now," she told Reuters on the sidelines. Asked to explain, she said: "It turns around the conventional framing of viewing Israel as the aggressor, and Palestinians as the ultimate victim."

Halperin-Kaddari, formerly Vice-President at the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), is meeting U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk on Tuesday to convey this message, supply him with new evidence and request a strong condemnation of the attacks, she said.

A U.N. rights office spokesperson said Turk's office had requested access to Israel to monitor and collect information on the Oct. 7 attacks but had not received a response from Israel.

"The Office is attempting to carry out remote monitoring of these and other human rights violations reported in Israel and the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). Lack of direct access to Israel and the OPT has hampered the work," said Ravina Shamdasani in response to emailed questions.

"We have repeatedly stressed the need for rigorous investigations and accountability for all serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law, irrespective of the identity of the alleged perpetrators," she added.

Evidence about sexual violence includes testimonies by first responders at the sites of the attacks as well as military reservists who tended to the bodies in the identification process. Reuters has seen photos corroborating some of those accounts.

Halperin-Kaddari said she has been given access to some evidence and testimonies by Israeli authorities in order to "raise awareness and demand condemnation and accountability".

She described meeting a paramedic who tended to a woman after the Oct. 7 music festival who was bleeding heavily after being raped by four attackers.

Halperin-Kaddari said she would also like to see independent bodies investigate the crimes.

One body that rights experts say could investigate is an independent commission of inquiry set up by the U.N. Human Rights Council, but Israel does not cooperate with it, alleging bias. Turk's office also called for Israeli authorities to cooperate with this inquiry.

Israeli forces and Hamas fighters abided by a truce for a fifth day on Tuesday, after a four-day ceasefire was extended at the last minute by at least 48 hours to let more hostages go free.

A single column of black smoke could be seen rising above the obliterated wasteland of the northern Gaza war zone from across the fence in Israel, but there was no sign of jets in the sky or rumble of explosions.

Both sides reported some Israeli tank fire in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City in the morning, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. A spokesperson for the Israeli Defence Forces said: "After suspects approached IDF troops, an IDF tank fired a warning shot."

During the truce, Hamas fighters released 50 Israeli women and children as young as toddlers from among the 240 hostages they captured in southern Israel during a deadly rampage on Oct. 7. In return, Israel released 150 security detainees from its jails, all women and teenagers.

Hamas also released 19 foreign hostages, mainly Thai farmworkers, under separate deals parallel to the truce agreement.

Israel has said the truce could be prolonged as long as Hamas continues to release at least 10 hostages per day. But with fewer women and children left in captivity, keeping the guns quiet beyond Wednesday could require negotiating to free at least some Israeli men for the first time.

"We hope the occupation (Israel) abides (by the agreement) in the next two days because we are seeking a new agreement, besides women and children, whereby other categories that we have that we can swap," Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya told Al Jazeera late on Monday.

Israeli security cabinet minister Gideon Saar told Army Radio that the two-day extension had been agreed under the terms of the original offer, and Israel remained willing to extend the truce further if more hostages were released.

"Immediately upon the completion of the hostage-recovery framework, the warfighting will be renewed," he said.

Qatar, the main mediator of the truce in negotiations also involving Egypt and the United States, was now trying to secure a further extension based on Hamas releasing more hostages, its foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al-Ansari, said.

The truce brought the first respite to the Gaza Strip in seven weeks, during which Israel had bombed swathes of the territory, especially the north, including Gaza City, into a desolate moonscape. More aid was able to reach the territory, which had been under a total Israeli siege.

Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, after its gunmen burst across the fence and went on a violent spree, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 240 captives.

Since then, Gaza health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 15,000 people have been confirmed killed in Israel's bombardment, around 40% of them children, with many more dead feared to be lost under rubble.

More than two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million people have lost their homes, trapped inside the enclave, with thousands of families sleeping rough in makeshift shelters with only the belongings they could carry.

When the war resumes, Israel has made clear it intends to press on with its assault from the northern half of Gaza into the south. U.S. officials said they have told their ally to be more careful about protecting civilians as its forces press on into areas where there are fewer opportunities to escape.

"You cannot have the sort of scale of displacement that took place in the north replicated in the south. It will be beyond disruptive, it will be beyond the capacity of any humanitarian support network," one U.S. official said in a call with reporters. "It can't happen."

Despite releasing 150 detainees under the truce, Israel has been arresting Palestinians far faster than it lets them go: according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, a semi-official organisation, 3,290 Palestinians have been detained since Oct 7.

As Israel released the final 33 detainees under the original agreement on Monday night from its Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, its forces clashed with some of the dozens of Palestinians waiting outside.

Some of the protesters waved the flags of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group. The Palestinian health ministry said one Palestinian was killed in the area. Israel had no immediate comment on the incident.

Israel added an additional 50 Palestinian women to its list of 300 detainees cleared for release under the truce, seen as a sign it was prepared to negotiate for more hostages to go free under further extensions.

Any release of male Israeli civilians would be expected to begin with fathers and husbands captured along with the children and women freed in recent days, like Ofer Calderon, whose daughters Sahar and Erez were freed on Monday.

"It is difficult to go from a state of endless anxiety about their fate to a state of relief and joy," said Ido Dan, a relative, about the release of the two girls.

"This is an exciting and heart-filling moment but ... it is the beginning of a difficult rehabilitation process for Sahar and Erez, who are still young and have been through an unbearable experience."

Israel's siege has led to the collapse of Gaza's health care system, especially in the northern half of the territory where no hospitals remain functioning. The World Health Organization said more Gazans could soon be dying of disease than from bombing.

WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris, citing a U.N. report on the living conditions of displaced residents from northern Gaza, said there was already a very high number of cases of infants suffering from diarrhoea: "No medicines, no vaccination activities, no access to safe water and hygiene and no food."

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