Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Escalates

The World Health Organization (WHO) reaches Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis to deliver essential medical supplies for about 1,000 patients. But the attempt to deliver food to the hospital failed because the aid was stripped from the trucks "by crowds who are also desperate for food", WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

International efforts towards a new pause in the devastating Gaza war gathered pace, as Israel bombarded the Palestinian territory during fierce fighting with Hamas militants.

Hamas was reviewing a proposal for a six-week truce in its war with Israel, a source said, after mediators gathered in Paris.

While talks take place, the population of Gaza is starving to death due to constraints imposed on humanitarian aid, the World Health Organization's emergencies director Michael Ryan said, in the latest such warning.

As Qatari- and Egyptian-led mediation efforts intensified, a Hamas official said the group's leader Ismail Haniyeh "will be in Cairo" to discuss the truce proposal.

There would also be "negotiations around the withdrawal of Israeli forces", with possible additional phases involving more hostage-prisoner exchanges, said the source, adding the territory's rebuilding was also among issues addressed by the deal.

The war was triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages. Israel says 132 of them remain in Gaza including at least 29 people believed to have been killed.

Following the deadliest attack in Israel's history, its military launched a withering air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.