The two suspects arrested over the Louvre jewellery heist have “partially” confessed to their involvement in the robbery, according to a prosecutor.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau revealed the development at a news conference on Wednesday.

Four thieves stole nine items – one of which was dropped and recovered at the scene – in a heist pulled off while the world-famous Paris museum was open to visitors on 19 October.

It took the thieves less than eight minutes to steal the jewels. They forced open a window and cut into cases with power tools after gaining access via a vehicle-mounted mechanical lift.

Ms Beccuau also said the jewels had not yet been recovered.

“These jewels are now, of course, unsellable,” said Ms Beccuau. “Anyone who buys them would be guilty of concealment of stolen goods. It’s still time to give them back.”

‘No evidence’

Ms Beccuau also addressed reports that police believe the robbery could have been an inside job.

She said that there was “no evidence the thieves benefited from inside help”.

Under French rules for organised theft, custody can run up to 96 hours. That limit is due to expire late on Wednesday, and prosecutors must charge the suspects, release them or seek a judge’s extension.

One suspect is a 34-year-old Algerian national who has been living in France since 2010, Ms Beccuau said. He was arrested Saturday night at Charles de Gaulle airport as he was about to fly to Algeria with no return ticket.

Ms Beccuau said that he was living in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, and was known to police mostly for road traffic offences.

The other suspect, 39, was arrested Saturday night at his home in Aubervilliers.

“There is no evidence to suggest that he was about to leave the country,” said Ms Beccuau.

The man was known to police for several thefts, and his DNA was found on one of the glass cases where the jewels were displayed, and on items the thieves left behind, she added.

Earlier, French police acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defences.

Paris police chief Patrice Faure told politicians that ageing security systems had left weak spots.

“A technological step has not been taken,” he said.

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Mr Faure also revealed that the Louvre’s authorisation to operate its security cameras quietly expired in July and had not been renewed.

He said the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s alarms, but from a cyclist outside who dialled the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift.

Mr Faure also rejected calls for a permanent police post inside the museum, warning it would set an unworkable precedent and do little against fast and mobile thieves.

“I am firmly opposed,” he said. “The issue is not a guard at a door; it is speeding the chain of alert.”

The Israeli military says it has carried out a fresh strike on Gaza, in a move that will further raise concerns about the fragility of its ceasefire with Hamas.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it conducted the strike on what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in the area of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

It said the site was being used to store weapons that it claimed were “intended to be used for the execution of an imminent terror attack against IDF soldiers”.

“IDF soldiers in the southern command remain deployed in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” a spokesperson said.

People living in Gaza City said they heard an explosion in Gaza and saw a column of smoke.

It comes after hospital officials said at least 104 people, including 46 children, had been killed overnight in Gaza after Israel launched new strikes.

Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes after an Israeli official reported that troops had come under fire in southern Gaza.

Israel claimed a soldier was killed on Tuesday afternoon by “enemy fire” in the southern city of Rafah.

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The decision also followed Hamas’s handover on Monday of body parts that Israel said belonged to a hostage whose remains were partly recovered earlier in the conflict.

Hamas has denied any role in the Rafah shooting and reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire.

‘Nothing is going to jeopardise the ceasefire’

US President Donald Trump had said the ceasefire was not at risk, telling reporters: “As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier.”

He added: “So the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back. Nothing is going to jeopardise [the ceasefire].

“You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave.”

Following the latest strikes, the Israeli military said it would continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement. It added that it would respond firmly to “any violation”.

‘Very disappointing and frustrating’

Qatar’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said on Wednesday that the attack on the Israeli soldier and the following airstrikes had been “very disappointing and frustrating for us”.

Qatar had been leading peace efforts in Gaza, along with the US and Egypt.

At the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, al-Thani said Hamas militants had been clear they were prepared to give up governance of the enclave, which they have run since 2007.

He added that Qatar had been pushing them to acknowledge that they need to disarm.

Microsoft Azure was down for thousands of users on Wednesday due to issues with its domain name system.

Microsoft said it was “investigating an issue with the Azure Portal where customers may be experiencing issues accessing the portal”.

It later said a fix had rolled out to solve the issue.

Azure was down for more than 105,000 users, Downdetector, which tracks online outages, said on X. It said Microsoft 365 was down for nearly 9,000 users.

The tech company said it was reviewing reports of an issue impacting Azure and services, including an impact on the Microsoft 365 admin center.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Sky News: “We are working to address an issue affecting Azure Front Door that is impacting the availability of some services. Customers should continue to check their Service Health Alerts and the latest update on this issue can be found on the Azure status page.”

On Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages, users reported issues with Office 365, Minecraft, X-Box Live, Copilot, Costco, Starbucks, and many other services.

Alaska Airlines posted on its X account that the outage is at the heart of problems affecting its systems, including check-in services.

The issue came hours before Microsoft was set to release its quarterly earnings report.

Amazon’s AWS cloud service faced an outage last week, which caused global chaos on thousands of sites, including some of the web’s most popular apps, such as Snapchat and Reddit.