Saturday

Incoming U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to secure a ceasefire deal in Gaza before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. (Sky News)

Netanyahu sends Mossad director David Barnea to ceasefire talks in Doha, Qatar. (ABC News)

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced civilians in Jabalia, northern Gaza, kills at least eight Palestinians and leaves 30 others injured. (Middle East Monitor)

The Russian Army says that it has gained control of the settlement of Shevchenko in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Anadolu Agency)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announces that Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in healthy condition in Kursk Oblast, Russia, for the first time since North Korea entered the war, as the two previous North Korean prisoners of war died of their injuries shortly following their capture. (Reuters)

The Puntland Security Force discover a cave used to store food by ISIL in the Cal Miskaad mountains, while killing and capturing insurgent fighters and destroying improvised explosive devices and hideouts. The security force also took down three drones armed with explosives as they continue their offensive into Bari region, Puntland. (Garowe Online) (The Somali Digest) (VOA)

The Sudanese Armed Forces say that they liberated Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira State, Sudan, from the Rapid Support Forces. (Al Arabiya)

At least fifteen civilians are killed and 10 others are wounded in a Tatmadaw airstrike on a market, targeting Kachin Independence Army fighters, in Tanai Township, Kachin State, Myanmar. (The Defense Post) (Daily Post)

Twenty-one government-backed fighters are killed during an ambush against a convoy in Baure, Katsina State, Nigeria. (Al Jazeera)

At least 939 CDCR inmates are deployed to fight the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles County, California, United States. (BBC News)

The number of deaths in the California wildfires rises to 16. (NBC)

France places the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte on red alert due to approaching Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi, roughly one month after the French overseas department was devastated by Cyclone Chido. (Reuters)

At least fifteen people are killed and 67 others are injured, including 40 critically, in an explosion at a gas station in Al Bayda Governorate, Yemen. (CTV News)

Six people are killed and eleven injured when a propane-butane cylinder explodes in a restaurant in Most, Czech Republic. (Reuters) (DW)