The world in brief

Hamas said that it was considering a ceasefire proposal put forward by Israel. David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary, said that a 40-day truce was on the table. Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, urged Hamas to accept it, calling it “extraordinarily generous”. But a spokesperson for the group said that Israel is ignoring their call for a complete ceasefire. Officials from America, Egypt and Qatar have long been trying to broker a truce in exchange for the release of hostages held by Hamas, thus far to no avail.

Columbia University began suspending pro-Palestinian student protesters who had ignored an order from administrators to remove their encampment of about 80 tents from the campus. In response, protesters took over a building, barricading the entrance and unfurling Palestinian flags. Earlier Minouche Shafik, the university’s president, rejected the protesters’ demand that Columbia divest from Israeli equities, but promised to invest in Gaza’s health care and education.