Egypt hosts Gaza ceasefire talks as fierce fighting rages
Envoys from the US, Qatar and Hamas are in Cairo for key talks
GAZA STRIP: as “famine spreads in the Strip’s north”.
Israel’s top ally the United States on Saturday began airdropping aid into war-ravaged Gaza, which has faced dwindling deliveries of relief supplies across its land borders.
The Hamas official said the group would demand “the entry of at least 400 to 500 trucks per day” carrying food, medicine and fuel as part of the truce deal.
The US official, speaking to reporters late on Saturday, said “there’s a framework deal” for a ceasefire which “the Israelis have more or less accepted”.
‘Acute food insecurity’
With fears of widespread famine mounting, US military planes parachuted “over 38,000 meals” into Gaza, US Central Command said, joining several Arab and European government that have carried out airdrops since November.
But officials and aid groups have said such operations cannot replace overland aid access.
The UN Security Council voiced concern over “alarming levels of acute food insecurity”, highlighted by a desperate rush for aid from a convoy of trucks in Gaza City on Thursday that ended in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.
Several foreign leaders have called for an investigation into the aid truck storming, which the Gaza health ministry said resulted in the deaths of 116 people. The ministry said Israeli forces shot civilians, but the Israeli army insisted most died in a stampede or crush.
A United Nations team that visited a Gaza City hospital reported seeing “a large number” of gunshot wounds among Palestinians in the aftermath of the incident.
The aid convoy deaths pushed the war death toll in Gaza to at least 30,410, mostly women and children, the health ministry said on Sunday.