Israel is facing growing criticism from its topmost supporter the US as environments in the besieged Palestinian territory worsen and food shortage appears.
US Vice President Kamala Harris met Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz in Washington, the same day the World Health Organization (WHO) said an aid mission at the weekend found that 10 children had died of starvation at the Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals.
In Khan Yunis, the main city in Gaza’s south, people described finding rotting bodies lying in streets lined with destroyed buildings.
“We want to eat and live. Look at our homes. How am I to blame, a single, unarmed person without any income in this impoverished country?” said Nader Abu Shanab, pointing to the rubble with blackened hands.
The war has sparked violence across the region, including near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. Anger over Israel’s Gaza campaign has grown across the Middle East, stoking violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
As hunger threatens Gazans, US, and Jordanian cargo planes again airdropped more than 36,000 meals into Gaza Tuesday food aid into the besieged territory of 2.4 million people in a joint operation with Egypt and France.
US Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza, while the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported children dying of starvation in two northern Gaza hospitals.
The UN’s World Food Programme said Israeli troops turned away an aid convoy at a checkpoint leading to northern Gaza and desperate people later looted it.
Envoys from Hamas and the United States have been meeting Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Cairo for negotiations over a six-week truce, the exchange of dozens of remaining hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of aid to Gaza.
The talks in Cairo have so far not included Israel, with Israeli media reporting that its delegates had boycotted the talks after Hamas failed to provide a list of living hostages.
However, senior Hamas leader Bassem Naim told the media that details on the prisoners were not mentioned in any documents or proposals circulated during the negotiation process.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official in Beirut, said his group would not allow the path of negotiations to be open indefinitely.
Israel has said it believes 130 of the 250 captives taken by Hamas fighters in their unprecedented October 7 attack, which triggered the war; remain in Gaza but that 31 have been killed.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani met and agreed that the release of sick, wounded, elderly, and women hostages would result in an immediate ceasefire in Gaza over six weeks at least.
The first phase of a ceasefire would enable a surge of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, and provide time and space to secure more enduring arrangements and sustained calm, a White House readout of the meeting said.
Egypt’s Al-Qahera News, which is close to the country’s intelligence services, said the talks continued for a fourth consecutive day on Wednesday.
Biden warned Hamas to agree to a Gaza truce by Ramadan, which begins early next week after his top diplomat Antony Blinken urged it to accept an immediate ceasefire.
There has to be a ceasefire. If this continues to Ramadan, Israel, and Jerusalem could be very, very dangerous. It is in the hands of Hamas right now, the US president said,
The US urged Israel last week to allow Muslims to worship at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem during Ramadan. The Israeli government accepted in similar numbers to those in previous years.