Here’s what we know:

A framework agreed upon by the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt proposes a six-week cease-fire for Hamas to exchange some hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

The political chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, announced on Tuesday that the militant group had received a proposal to pause the fighting in Gaza, after representatives from four nations agreed to present the group with a framework that would begin with a six-week cease-fire to allow for the release of more hostages.

Mr. Haniyeh said in a statement that Hamas was studying the proposal that had emerged from talks over the weekend in Paris, which included officials from the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt. Mr. Haniyeh added that Hamas had received an invitation to Cairo to discuss “the framework agreement from the Paris meeting.”

While Mr. Haniyeh’s statement indicated that Hamas was considering the proposal, and thanked Qatar and Egypt for their efforts, he emphasized the group’s longstanding demand for a permanent cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

“The priority is ending the unjust aggression on Gaza and the complete withdrawal of the occupation’s forces,” Mr. Haniyeh said.

After talks in Paris on Sunday, representatives from the four nations agreed to have Qatar present a framework to Hamas that proposes a six-week pause in the war, during which Hamas would exchange some hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, officials said. In the proposed framework, Hamas would release older hostages, women and children, if any are still being held and are alive, during the initial six-week pause, according to the officials, who said that would be the first of three potential phases of swaps.

The officials, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy, cautioned that the talks are at an early stage, and many details would need to be worked out if Hamas agrees to start building on the framework. The group’s political leaders, including Mr. Haniyeh, would need to convey the proposal to its military leaders — a process that could take days or longer because the military leaders are believed to be in hiding in tunnels deep beneath Gaza.

Mr. Haniyeh suggested in his statement that Hamas was willing to work with the framework, if it helps achieve its demands. In addition to a permanent cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, he said Hamas was seeking the reconstruction of Gaza, the lifting of a yearslong Israeli blockade on the territory and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

The four-nation meeting in Paris appeared to offer the most hopeful sign in months for a diplomatic agreement to ease the war. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel described the talks as “constructive” but cautioned that “significant gaps” remained.

The meeting in Paris — which included the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns; Israeli security officials; and the prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani — came as Israel’s government has faced increased pressure over its handling of the war, which began on Oct. 7. That day, Hamas led sweeping attacks into Israel that Israeli officials said killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 more hostage, making it the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history.

More than 100 hostages were released during a weeklong pause in the fighting in November, along with 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel. But efforts toward another deal have so far been elusive.

Family members of those still being held in Gaza have called for an urgent deal and the International Court of Justice in The Hague last week ordered the delivery of more humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where health officials say more than 26,000 people have died since Israel’s military campaign began.

Sheikh Mohammed, the Qatari prime minister, said on Monday that “good progress” had been made in the negotiations. Speaking at an event hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council, he said that talks were the only viable path toward de-escalation, adding that the rising death toll from Israel’s campaign in Gaza was “not getting any results to get the hostages back.”

Earlier on Monday, Sheikh Mohammed had met with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who said at an afternoon news conference that the proposal on the table is “a compelling one” and that “there is some real hope going forward.” But Mr. Blinken added: “Hamas will have to make its own decisions.”

The United Nations agency tasked with aiding refugees in the Gaza Strip does not carry out exhaustive background checks of its employees, but it delivers a list of its thousands of staff members in the enclave to Israeli authorities annually, current and former officials in the organization said on Monday.

The agency, known as UNRWA, was thrust into a crisis over the weekend, after Israel on Friday accused 12 of the group’s employees of participating in the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 or their aftermath. Several donor countries, including the United States, have temporarily suspended funding to the relief group, raising concerns that access to desperately needed aid in Gaza will be cut back.

Juliette Touma, the director of communications for UNRWA, said the agency wasn’t equipped to carry out extensive background checks of applicants, but she emphasized it performs reference checks and investigates concerns raised about individual staffers.

“We’re a humanitarian organization, not a government,” she said in an interview, noting that the Israeli government had not objected to its latest list of employees. The agency employs about 13,000 people in Gaza.

Lior Haiat, spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed UNRWA shares lists of workers with Israeli officials, but said they include minimal information and referred to employees as of many months earlier. Mr. Haiat argued that it was UNRWA’s — not Israel’s — responsibility to screen employees.

UNRWA, the largest aid group in Gaza, announced on Friday that it would fire the employees accused of participating in the attacks. (On Sunday, the U.N. secretary general said nine had been dismissed, and the aid agency said two were dead.) UNRWA said that the U.N.’s highest investigative body had started examining the allegations.

Matthias Schmale, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza from 2017 to 2021, said employees sign a pledge to remain neutral, and they participate in recurring workshops that encourage refraining from engaging in political activity or violence.

“I think we did the best we can in very tense political circumstances and with limited resources,” he said, adding that the team dedicated to enforcing neutrality in Gaza was halved during his tenure because of the Trump administration’s funding cuts. Tamara Alrifai, another UNRWA spokeswoman, said that after President Biden restored funding to the agency, some of those positions were brought back.

Still, Mr. Schmale said, those who violated the organization’s policies faced swift consequences. Eight employees, he said, were dismissed under his watch for neutrality violations, their use of social media and physical abuse. One employee, he said, was discovered to be a member of Hamas’s military wing after UNRWA staff discovered photos proving their membership in the militant group.

Mr. Schmale himself has been caught in controversy. In 2021, Hamas accused him of making remarks that minimized the toll of Israeli strikes during a brief war in Gaza that year, and amid protests he was reassigned by UNRWA. He later walked back the comments and expressed regret over them.

He said on Monday that the “best deterrent” to neutrality violations was discipline, noting Palestinians in Gaza want to keep their jobs with the U.N., especially because of severe unemployment in the territory. The tiny enclave, where more than two million people live, had a nearly 50 percent unemployment rate before the war.

Thousands of people in India are applying to work in Israel, whose need for labor has grown since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. Much of Israel’s foreign work force has left, work permits issued by Israel to Gazans have been annulled and many West Bank residents have been denied entry.

In India, which suffers from high unemployment and inflation in food and fuel prices, crowds of job seekers have been filling recruitment centers in northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, where Israel says it is recruiting for around 10,000 positions.

Israeli officials have said the recruitment in India is not intended to fill the gap left by Palestinian workers, but to meet an expanded quota for Indian workers under an agreement signed by the two countries last May. Among the main needs: workers with experience in plastering, steel fixing and ceramic tiling.

Three U.S. soldiers died on Sunday in what the U.S. said was a drone strike by an Iran-backed militia in Jordan, the first known fatalities among American military forces in the Middle East since Hamas launched attacks on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7.

The U.S. military has troops stationed in Iraq, Syria and Jordan in large part to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State, one of the most-feared terrorist organizations in recent history. Here is more on the U.S. military presence in the region.

Where are U.S. forces stationed in this part of the region?

U.S. forces are stationed across the Middle East, some in countries where the Islamic State flourished. There are 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria operating from bases that are often in remote areas. In Iraq, these troops support Iraq’s military, and in Syria, they support Kurdish forces. The forces also work to enforce U.S. sanctions against Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based military group and political party that is backed by Iran.

The bases where U.S. troops are stationed include Al Asad Air Base, which is in Iraq’s western desert and is mainly used by Iraqi forces. Troops are also deployed at the Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria, which is served by about 350 Army and Air Force personnel at the Tower 22 border outpost in northeastern Jordan.

The soldiers killed on Sunday died at Tower 22, and 34 others were wounded there when an exploding drone crashed into the base’s living quarters.

Iran has long cultivated proxy forces across the Middle East, but nowhere do they present a more complex picture than in Iraq and Syria, where they have repeatedly challenged U.S. military forces in the region.

The Biden administration on Sunday said a drone attack from an Iran-backed militia killed three U.S. service members on a base in a remote desert area in Jordan, the first known American military fatalities from hostile fire since Israel began its campaign in Gaza. But although the Iran-backed militias who call themselves the Axis of Resistance claimed responsibility for the attack, no individual group has said it launched the drone.

In most countries, Iran has fostered one group — such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen — but in Iraq, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have helped to recruit, train and arm more than a half-dozen groups since the United States invaded in 2003.

Today, these groups operate under the umbrella of a larger organization, made up of armed units that serve the Iraqi government and are known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units. Most of those units are loyal to the Iraqi government and are part of its defense apparatus.

However, a handful have retained close links to Iran, and some of those are responsible for attacks on U.S. military forces in Iraq and Syria — both before and after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the start of Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza.

These groups have also attacked Israel several times since it began its ground invasion of Gaza. A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said on Monday that the militias “do not take orders” from Iran and act independently. In their own statement, the groups said the drone attack on the base in Jordan was a “continuation of our approach to resisting the American occupation forces in Iraq and the region.”

Three of the groups closest to Iran are Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada. Other groups support them, but the first two are most associated with recent attacks on U.S. troops operating in Iraq and Syria and have fighters on both sides of the border. It is widely believed that the drone that killed the U.S. soldiers was launched from Syrian territory.

Kata'ib Hezbollah, which has a large base in Iraq near Baghdad and a longstanding relationship with Iran’s Quds Force, has launched attacks in Syria and has fighters in several areas within Iraq, as well as along the Syria-Iraq border.

In the last year, Nujaba has also launched a number of attacks in Syria and was linked to at least two attacks from Syria that targeted Israel: a drone attack that hit a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, and another that Iranian state television said targeted the Israeli city of Haifa.

A third attack, according to Israeli media, was aimed at the Golan Heights area. That one was claimed by the Axis of Resistance, though it is difficult to know which group was responsible.

The New York Times