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Syria will hold its first parliamentary elections on Sunday since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, amid concerns over inclusivity and successive delays, BBC reported.

There will be no direct vote for the People's Assembly, which will be responsible for legislation during a transitional period.

Instead, "electoral colleges" will select representatives for two-thirds of the 210 seats. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa will appoint the rest.

Long-time former President Assad was ousted by Sharaa's forces 10 months ago after a 13-year civil war.

Authorities say they have postponed the polls for security reasons in two Kurdish- controlled provinces and a third which saw deadly fighting between government forces and Druze militias, according to BBC.

President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago to address what he says is out-of-control crime, BBC reported.

The move came hours after immigration authorities said they faced off with protesters in the Democrat-run city and shot an armed woman when she and others rammed their cars into law enforcement vehicles.

State and local leaders have for weeks criticised Trump's deployment plans and called it an abuse of power. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said Trump was "attempting to manufacture a crisis".

The announcement came as a federal judge in Portland, Oregon - another liberal city - temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying 200 troops there, according to BBC.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to announce the release of hostages being held in Gaza "in the coming days".

In a televised statement, he also said "Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarised – either the easy way or the hard way, but it will be achieved." 

The comments came after Hamas released a statement on Friday in which it agreed to free the hostages under a US peace plan, but did not mention disarmament and sought negotiations on other issues, BBC reported.

Hamas said on Saturday that Israel was continuing to commit "massacres", after strikes hit Gaza in the morning, and it urged global pressure on Israel.

Indirect ceasefire talks between the parties are set to start in Egypt on Monday.

Israeli bombing of Gaza City has “significantly subsided” though at least five Palestinians were killed, a hospital official said Saturday, as Israel’s army said the country’s leaders had instructed it to prepare for the first phase of the US plan to end the war in Gaza.

Israel has moved to a defensive-only position in Gaza and will not actively strike, said an official who was not authorized to speak to the media on the record. The official said no forces have been removed from the territory.

Still, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiyah told the AP that Israeli strikes killed five Palestinians across Gaza City, while bombing had “significantly subsided.”

The army statement came hours after President Donald Trump ordered Israel to stop bombing Gaza once Hamas said it had accepted some elements of his plan. Trump welcomed the Hamas statement but on Saturday warned that “Hamas must move quickly, or else all bets will be off.” He noted that Israel had “temporarily stopped the bombing.”

Trump appears determined to deliver on pledges to end the war and return all hostages ahead of the second anniversary on Tuesday of the attack that sparked it. His proposal unveiled earlier this week has widespread international support.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel was committed to ending the war that began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 Oct 2023. Netanyahu is under increasing pressure to end the conflict. The official told the AP that Netanyahu put out the rare late-night statement on the Sabbath, saying that Israel has started to prepare for Trump’s plan due to pressure from the US.

The official also said a negotiating team was getting ready to travel, but there was no date specified.

A senior Egyptian official said US envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Egypt to head the US negotiating team in the talks to release the Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli detention. Delegations from Israel and Hamas will join the talks, which also will discuss maps showing the expected withdrawal of Israeli forces from certain areas in Gaza, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media.

The official involved in the ceasefire negotiations also said Arab mediators are preparing for a comprehensive dialogue among Palestinians aimed at unifying their position toward Gaza’s future. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second most powerful militant group in Gaza, said it accepted Hamas’ response to the Trump plan. The group had rejected the proposal days earlier.

AP