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Category: FOREIGN

  • Prisoner in American jail donates all his wages for working for 136 hours to Gaza

    Prisoner in American jail donates all his wages for working for 136 hours to Gaza

    Hamza, a prisoner incarcerated in an American jail and working as a janitor, donated all of his earnings to the people suffering in Gaza. The story has been widely shared across social media.


    Filmmaker Justin Mashouf first shared on his socials that his incarcerated friend Hamza had asked him to help him by donating his wage money to help civilians in Gaza.


    “An incarcerated brother I am in correspondence with donated $17.74 for relief efforts in Gaza. This donation is the sum of 136 hours of his labor in the prison working as a porter/janitor,” Mashouf wrote.

    The selfless act left not just Mashouf but also the people on Twitter and Instagram stunned.


    As Mashouf shared Hamza’s prison pay stub on social media, users raised more than $102,000 through a GoFundMe campaign. This money was intended to go to the 56-year-old Hamza who has been incarcerated for nearly 40 years and is set to be paroled this month, reports The Washington Post.


    Mashouf first contacted Hamza in 2009, when he was working on his documentary “The Honest Struggle.”


    The Washington Post did not publish Hamza’s legal name — “Hamza” is a chosen name — because Mashouf said Hamza feared he would be risking his parole status by seeking attention.


    Legal records show that Hamza was convicted of one count of second-degree murder in 1986 and sentenced to 15 years to life. He pleaded guilty to the murder when he was a teenager, records show.


    Mashouf told the Washington Post that Hamza had been convicted of the murder of an uncle.

    “Hamza accidentally fired a gun at a loved one … leading to his imprisonment for over four decades,” says GoFundMe page.

    At the time of his conviction, the judge told Hamza that he would be released on adult parole. However, Hamza appealed against the denial of his parole in 2013.


    Records show that Hamza has appeared in front of the court multiple times but has always been denied parole.

    The GoFundMe page also laid out how Hamza converted to Islam in 1989 and how he would be spending his money once released: health care, housing, clothing, food, a job search and training. Hamza has already decided, however, that some of the donations meant for him will go to others in need, Mashouf said.

    After Mashouf told Hamza that the funds were in the thousands, Hamza asked him to disable donations.

    “He said whatever has already been donated is sufficient for him,” Mashouf said. “And that he didn’t want to distract people from those who were suffering more than him.”

    Moreover, in an update on the GoFundMe page, Hamza said he was eager to start his new life.

    “I look forward to the promise of life, happiness, struggles, and dreams, to soar and spread my wings, to be a man, a human being once again now that I know the preciousness and the incalculable value of Life,” he wrote.

    Mashouf said that Hamza is a qualified electrician but would need computer and technological training to get up to speed before he joins the workforce outside prison.

    Hamza will also be donating his March paycheck to civilians in Gaza, one that he hopes is his final check from prison.

    Prisoners in California make between 8-37 cents per hour for their labour. This is a part of forced labour permitted by the constitution. Prison labour provides $ 11 billion per year to the country’s revenue, reported AJ+ in an explainer.

  • Gaza detainees released by Israel ‘traumatized,’ report abuse: UNRWA

    Gaza detainees released by Israel ‘traumatized,’ report abuse: UNRWA

    United Nations (United States) (AFP) – Gazans detained by Israeli forces are coming back “completely traumatized” upon release and reporting abuses while in captivity, the head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency said Monday.

    Detainees reported being subjected to a “broad range of ill treatment” including threats of electrocution, being photographed naked, sleep deprivation and having dogs used to intimidate them, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a media briefing.

    The comments follow reporting by the New York Times on an internal investigation compiled by UNRWA staff documenting the state of returning detainees at the Kerem Shalom border.

    “We have seen these people coming back from detention, some of them for a couple of weeks, some of them for a couple of months, and most of them coming back (are) completely traumatized by the ordeal they have gone through,” Lazzarini said.

    “A number of people have been… debriefed about their ordeal, and we have indeed (compiled) an internal report about their experiences.”

    The report had been shared with rights groups specializing in detention, he added.

    Lazzarini’s comments capped a tumultuous day during which Israel and UNRWA have traded accusations, with Israel accusing the agency of having employed more than 450 “terrorists.”

    Ahead of Lazzarini’s comments, meanwhile, UNRWA said Israeli authorities had “detained several of its staff from the Gaza Strip,” who later described abuses in custody.

    “Our staff have reported atrocious events while they were detained and during interrogations by the Israeli authorities. These reports included torture, severe ill-treatment, abuse and sexual exploitation,” UNRWA said in a statement to AFP.

    “Some of our staff have conveyed to UNRWA teams that they were forced to sign confessions under torture and ill-treatment” while being asked about Hamas’s October 7 attack.

    Israel in Gaza has killed 30,534 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from Gaza health ministry.

  • Spanish tourist gang-raped by seven men in India

    Spanish tourist gang-raped by seven men in India


    Spanish tourists identified as Vicente and Fernanda, having a total of 240 thousand followers on Instagram were attacked by a group of seven men in the Indian state of Jharkhand.


    The couple had stopped their motorbikes and set up a tent to pass the night in the state’s Dumka district when the group found them. They repeatedly hit the man and gang-raped the woman.


    “They had beaten us and robbed us, although not many things [were taken] because what they wanted was to rape me,” the 28-year-old woman said in an Instagram post while showing her bruised face.


    “They raped me, they took turns while some watched and they stayed like that for about two hours”, Fernanda, who has joint Brazilian-Spanish nationality, said in an interview.


    In another post, her male partner said he was hit several times in the head with a helmet and that his “mouth is destroyed”.


    A patrol car rescued the duo late on Friday night after the assault and escorted them to a local hospital.


    The local police has said that they have identified everyone involved and arrested four men who have confessed to rape.

    However, three of them have appeared in court after the gang rape of a Spanish tourist on a motorbike trip with her husband, with police hunting four other suspects, reports said Monday. “We have formed a team to hunt the remaining suspects,” senior local police officer Pitamber Singh Kherwar told AFP.

    On Sunday, three accused were seen being escorted into court with sacks on their heads by police officers holding ropes tied around their waists. The three were later remanded in custody.

    The Spanish woman and her husband were also in court.

    “We have to ensure strict punishment,” Kherwar said, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported Monday.

    Kherwar said a special team including forensic officers had been formed to scour the scene of the attack, while another team was hunting more suspects.

    “They are constantly raiding places,” Kherwar said in PTI’s report. “We will soon arrest the remaining accused.”


    On average, in 2022, nearly 90 rapes were reported in India every day, meaning one woman is raped every 18 minutes according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which recorded 31,516 rape cases that year.


    Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh states recorded the highest number of cases.

  • Haiti declares state of emergency after thousands of prisoners escape

    Haiti declares state of emergency after thousands of prisoners escape

    Haiti’s government declared on Sunday a state of emergency and nighttime curfew in a bid to regain control of the country after a deadly gang assault on the capital’s main prison that allowed thousands of inmates to escape.

    The curfew will be enforced from 6 pm to 5 am in the Ouest region, which includes the capital, through Wednesday, the government said in a statement, adding that both the curfew and the state of emergency can be extended.

    About a dozen people died as gang members attacked the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince overnight Saturday into Sunday, an AFP reporter observed.

    The attack came as part of a new spate of extreme violence in the Haitian capital, where well-armed gangs who control much of the city have wreaked havoc since Thursday.

    The gangs say they want to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led the crisis-wracked Caribbean nation since the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in 2021.

    Only around 100 of the National Penitentiary’s estimated 3,800 inmates were still inside the facility Sunday after the gang assault, Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Defense of Human Rights said.

    “We counted many prisoners’ bodies,” he added.

    An AFP reporter who visited the prison on Sunday observed around a dozen bodies outside it and hardly anyone inside. Some bodies had wounds from bullets or other projectiles.

    In its statement late Sunday, the Haitian government said security forces had “received orders to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and detain those who violate it.”

    It said the objective was to allow the government to “re-establish order and take the appropriate measures to take back control of the situation.”

    Economy Minister Patrick Michel Boisvert signed the statement as the country’s acting prime minister.

    Prime Minister Henry was in Kenya last week to sign an agreement to deploy police from the East African country to lead a UN-backed law and order mission to the gang-plagued nation.

    Haiti’s government is notoriously weak — kidnapping and other violent crime is rampant and gangs are described as much better armed than the police themselves.

    Gang members also attacked a second prison called Croix des Bouquets, police said earlier.

    Known gang leaders and people charged in the assassination of Moise were among those incarcerated in the main prison, located a few hundred meters from the National Palace, the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste said.

    The prison had been “spied on by the assailants since Thursday via drones,” before it was attacked early Saturday evening, according to Le Nouvelliste.

    Esperance said it was not immediately clear how many inmates escaped from the second prison, which he said held 1,450 inmates.

    – Kenya-led security mission –

    Powerful gang leader Jimmy Cherisier, known by the nickname Barbecue, said in a video posted on social media that armed groups in Haiti were acting in concert “to get Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down.”

    It was not immediately clear on Sunday if the prime minister had returned to Haiti after his Kenya trip.

    The UN Security Council in October approved an international police support mission to Haiti that Nairobi had agreed to lead, but a Kenyan court ruling has thrown its future into doubt.

    On Friday, Henry signed an accord in Nairobi with Kenyan President William Ruto on deploying the force.

    Ruto said he and Henry had “discussed the next steps to enable the fast-tracking of the deployment,” but it was not immediately clear whether the agreement would counter a court ruling in January that branded the deployment “illegal.”

    Haiti, the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation, has been in turmoil for years, and the 2021 presidential assassination plunged the country further into chaos.

    No elections have taken place since 2016 and the presidency remains vacant.

    Protesters have demanded Henry’s resignation in line with a political deal that required Haiti to hold polls and for him to cede power to newly elected officials by February 7 of this year.

  • Israel broadly agrees Gaza truce, US official says, ahead of talks

    Israel broadly agrees Gaza truce, US official says, ahead of talks

    Palestinian Territories – Israel has “more or less accepted” a proposal for a ceasefire in its attacks in the Gaza Strip, a US official said Saturday as Palestinian negotiators were expected in Cairo.

    Mediators have been scrambling to lock in a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which begins on March 10 or 11, eyeing an end to the almost five-month conflict that has ravaged Gaza.

    In a sign of the dire humanitarian conditions as violence rages on, the besieged territory’s health ministry reported more than a dozen child malnutrition deaths in recent days.

    The US official told reporters on condition of anonymity that “there’s a framework deal” for a ceasefire which “the Israelis have more or less accepted”.

    “Right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas,” the official said.

    A source close to Hamas told AFP a delegation from the group was headed from Qatar to Egypt on Saturday.

    Israel has yet to confirm that it has accepted the truce plan.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said that Hamas would deliver its “official answer” to the plan, which resulted from talks with Israeli negotiators in Paris late last month.

    The mediators “will resume negotiations for a Gaza truce in Cairo on Sunday,” Egypt’s AlQahera News reported.

    Earlier the United States, which provides ally Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, said it began airdropping aid into war-ravaged Gaza.

    The start of the US relief operation came a day after President Joe Biden announced the move and spoke of the “need to do more” to alleviate the dire humanitarian crisis.

    But parachuting aid cannot replace “the fundamental need to move assistance through as many land crossings as possible”, the US official said.

    ‘Unjustifiable’ shooting

    Gaza has faced dwindling deliveries of relief supplies across its land borders, which aid groups blame at least in part on Israeli restrictions.

    US Central Command, in a post on social media platform X, said the air operation was conducted jointly with Jordan and saw planes drop “over 38,000 meals along the coastline of Gaza allowing for civilian access to the critical aid”.

    Several Arab and European governments have carried out air drops over Gaza since November but Tuesday’s operation was the first involving the United States.

    At least 13 children have died from “malnutrition and dehydration”, the Gaza health ministry said Saturday, two days after a desperate rush for aid from a convoy of trucks in Gaza City ended in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.

    The health ministry said Israeli forces shot civilians but the Israeli army insisted most died in a stampede or crush.

    A United Nations team that visited Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital reported seeing “a large number” of gunshot wounds among Palestinians in the aftermath of the aid truck storming.

    Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the city’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, said all the casualties it admitted were hit by “bullets and shrapnel from occupation forces”.

    The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell joined calls for an “impartial international investigation” into the “tragic event” early Thursday.

    The shooting “against civilians trying to access foodstuff is unjustifiable”, he said.

    The health ministry said 116 people were killed and more than 750 wounded in the chaotic scenes, which drew widespread international condemnation.

    The aid convoy deaths helped push the number of Palestinian war dead in Gaza to 30,320, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

    ‘Destruction is everywhere’

    Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian office OCHA, said on Friday that “a famine is almost inevitable”.

    Laerke cited the near-total closure of commercial food imports, the “trickle of trucks” coming in with food aid, and the “massive access constraints” to moving around inside Gaza.

    The International Rescue Committee said the very fact airdrops were “being considered is testament to the serious access challenges”.

    The group said parachuting aid mostly distracts “time and effort from proven solutions to help at scale”.

    AFPTV images showed people running and pedalling fast on bicycles past bomb-damaged buildings on a rutted dirt road to reach aid floating down to Gaza City.

    Hisham Abu Eid, 28, of Gaza City’s Zeitun area, said he got two bags of flour from an aid distribution and gave one to his neighbours.

    “Aid that is getting into Gaza is rare and not enough for even a small number of people. Famine is killing people,” Abu Eid said.

    As mediators seek a deal that may include more aid into Gaza and the release of hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under increasing domestic pressure over the fate of the remaining captives.

    Israelis protesters reached Jerusalem on Saturday, capping a four-day march from the Gaza border to pressure the government to secure the hostages’ release.

    The US official said a six-week ceasefire was on the table, “starting today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages… the sick, the wounded, elderly and women”.

    In Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by the war have sought refuge, Israeli bombardment that hit a makeshift camp killed at least 11 people, the Gaza health ministry said.

    The strike near a hospital also left “about 50 injured, including children”, it added.

    The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

    An AFP journalist saw wounded people being rushed on stretchers to another Rafah hospital.

    “Destruction is everywhere and there are many martyrs,” said resident Belal Abu Jekhleh.

    burs-ami/kir

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Iran counts ballots in vote seen favouring conservatives

    Iran counts ballots in vote seen favouring conservatives

    Tehran, Iran – Iran began counting ballots on Saturday after a vote for parliament and a key clerical body, with local media estimating a low turnout and conservatives expected to dominate.

    Friday’s elections were the first since widespread protests triggered by the September 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd. She had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

    Iran has also been badly affected by international sanctions that have led to an economic crisis since the last elections in 2020.

    State TV reported early Saturday the “start of vote counting” after polling stations closed at midnight. Voting hours had been extended several times during the day, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    A record figure of 15,200 hopefuls were competing for seats in the 290-member parliament. Another 144 candidates sought a place in the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which is exclusively made up of male Islamic scholars.

    The Assembly selects or, if necessary, dismisses Iran’s supreme leader. Many potential candidates for the chamber were disqualified.

    Local Fars news agency estimated turnout at “more than 40 percent”, among 61 million eligible voters.

    President Ebrahim Raisi welcomed the voters’ “enthusiastic” participation as “another historic failure to (Iran’s) enemies,” according to IRNA.

    Iran considers the United States, its Western allies and Israel enemies of the state and accuses them of seeking to intervene in its internal affairs.

    Reformist daily Ham Mihan ran an opinion piece titled “The Silent Majority”, which said turnout was “estimated to be lower than” in previous elections.

    Iran’s 2020 parliament was elected during the Covid pandemic with a turnout of 42.57 percent — the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

    A state TV poll had found more than half of respondents were indifferent about this year’s elections.

    Candidates for parliament are vetted by a body, the Guardian Council, whose members are determined by the supreme leader.

    The present parliament is dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives, and analysts expected a similar makeup in the new assembly.

    Despite Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s appeal for people to cast ballots, many Iranians were split on whether or not to do so.

    Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami was among people who avoided the poll, according to a coalition of parties called the Reform Front.

    In February the conservative Javan daily quoted Khatami as saying Iran is “very far from free and competitive elections.”

    rkh-ap/it

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Indian photographer shot dead after camera battery ran out at birthday party

    Indian photographer shot dead after camera battery ran out at birthday party

    A photographer in Bihar, India, has been allegedly shot dead by the hosts of a birthday party after his camera battery got drained.

    Sushil Sahni was killed at the party of the daughter of the suspect, who was reportedly dissatisfied with the photographer’s service when his camera’s battery ran out.

    Sushil had returned to his house to charge his battery but the alleged murderer upon not finding him in the party contacted him and forcefully asked him to come back to the party after charging the battery.

    Upon Sushil’s return, a scuffle broke out between the two, and in a fit of rage, the party owner put a pistol in Sushil’s mouth and fired. The suspect then took the victim to the gate of the hospital and fled the spot, reports Indian media.

    The suspect has reportedly been involved in the illegal liquor business and the police is making attempts to find him.

  • Israel forces kill more than 110 civilians rushing for food aid

    Israel forces kill more than 110 civilians rushing for food aid

    Israeli forces in Gaza opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in a chaotic melee on Thursday that the health ministry said killed more than 100 people.

    The Israeli military said a “stampede” occurred when thousands of desperate Gazans surrounded a convoy of 38 aid trucks, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, including some who were run over by the lorries.

    An Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd, believing it “posed a threat”.

    Gaza’s health ministry condemned what it called a “massacre” in Gaza City in which 112 people were killed and more than 750 others wounded.

    Türkiye accused Israel of committing “another crime against humanity” and condemning Gazans to “famine” as civilians scavenge for dwindling supplies of food.

    “The fact that Israel… this time targets innocent civilians in a queue for humanitarian aid, is evidence that (Israel) aims consciously and collectively to destroy the Palestinian people”, the Turkish foreign ministry  said in a statement.

    “We therefore call on all those with influence over the Israeli government to stop the ongoing violence in Gaza.”

    The incident adds to a Palestinian death toll from the war that the ministry said had topped 30,000, and dampens hopes a truce deal between Israel and Hamas militants could be just days away.

    There were conflicting reports on what exactly unfolded in the hours before dawn.

    A witness in Gaza City, declining to be named for safety reasons, said the violence began when thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks at the city’s western Nabulsi roundabout, with soldiers firing at the crowd “as people came too close” to tanks.

    Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military had fired “a few warning shots” to try to disperse a crowd that had “ambushed” the aid trucks.

    When the crowd got too big, he said the convoy tried to retreat and “the unfortunate incident resulted in dozens of Gazans killed and injured”.

    Aerial images released by the Israeli army showed what it said were scores of people surrounding aid trucks in Gaza City.

    Ali Awad Ashqir, who said he had gone to get some food for his starving family, told AFP he had been waiting for two hours when trucks began to arrive.

    “The moment they arrived, the occupation army fired artillery shells and guns,” he said.

    Hagari later denied Israeli forces carried out any shelling or strikes at the time.

     ‘Another day from hell’ 

    U.S. President Joe Biden said Washington was checking “two competing versions” of the incident, while a State Department spokesman said the United States had been in touch with Israel and was “pressing for answers” on what happened.

    The incident would complicate efforts to broker a truce, Biden said, later admitting that any deal was unlikely to happen by Monday — the timeline that he had predicted earlier this week.

    The U.S. president spoke with Qatari and Egyptian leaders in separate phone calls, the White House said, saying he discussed both the ceasefire and the “tragic and alarming” aid incident.

    The U.N. Security Council held a closed-door emergency meeting on the incident.

    The U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood condemned the incident before entering the meeting, calling it a “tragic day”.

    Saudi Arabia strongly condemned what it called the “targeting” of unarmed civilians, while Kuwait and the UAE also issued condemnations.

    Qatar warned that Israel’s “disregard for Palestinian blood… (will) pave the way for an expanding cycle of violence”.

    French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “strongest condemnation”, while Spain’s foreign minister described the events as “unacceptable”.

    European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell also denounced the “carnage”.

    Looting of aid trucks has previously occurred in northern Gaza, where desperate residents have taken to eating animal fodder and even leaves to stave off starvation.

    The chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that no U.N. agency had been involved in Thursday’s aid delivery, and called the incident “another day from hell”.

  • Iran Launches Imaging Satellite From Russia

    Iran Launches Imaging Satellite From Russia

    Iran announced on Thursday the launch of a remote sensing and imaging satellite into orbit from Russia, according to state media.

    The launch of “Pars-I” with the Russian Soyuz-2.1b launcher was broadcast live by state television in Iran.

    The satellite was launched “from Russia’s Vostochny launch base”, some 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) east of Moscow, according to the official IRNA news agency.

    Iran’s telecommunications minister Issa Zareppur said “Pars-I” was “fully domestically developed” in Iran, which he said carried out a dozen satellite launches over the past two years.

    In January, Iran said it simultaneously launched three satellites into orbit, nearly a week after the launch of a research satellite by its Revolutionary Guards.

    Western governments including the United States have repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, saying the same technology can be used for ballistic missiles, including ones designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.

    Iran has countered that it is not seeking nuclear weapons and that its satellite and rocket launches are for civil or defence purposes only.

    In August 2022, Russia launched Iran’s remote-sensing Khayyam satellite into orbit from Kazakhstan amid controversy that Moscow might use it to boost its surveillance of military targets in its war in Ukraine.

    Moscow has sought to strengthen its alliances with other countries ostracised by the West, including Iran, which has been accused of supplying Moscow with armed drones for its offensive in Ukraine.

    This month, the United States said it would soon impose new sanctions on Iran over its backing for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Tehran denies the allegations.

  • Death toll in Gaza exceeds 30,000 as Israeli attacks continue and famine looms

    Death toll in Gaza exceeds 30,000 as Israeli attacks continue and famine looms

    Palestinian Territories – The health ministry of Gaza said Thursday more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 as Israel intensified its attacks on the besieged strip.

    While mediators say a truce deal between Israel and Hamas could be just days away, aid agencies have sounded the alarm of a looming famine in Gaza’s north.

    Children have died “due to malnutrition, dehydration and widespread famine” at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, said the health ministry, whose spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra has called for “immediate action” from international organisations to prevent more of these deaths.

    Citing the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, USAID head Samantha Power said Israel needed to open more crossings so that “vitally needed humanitarian assistance can be dramatically surged”.

    “This is a matter of life and death,” Power said in a video posted on social media platform X.

    The latest overall toll for Palestinians killed in the war came after at least 79 people died overnight across the war-torn Gaza Strip, the health ministry said Thursday.

    Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been seeking a six-week pause.

    Negotiators are hoping a truce can begin by the start of Ramadan, the holy Muslim month that kicks off March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.

    The proposals reportedly include the release of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

    Short of the complete withdrawal Hamas has called for, a source from the group said the deal might see Israeli forces leave “cities and populated areas”, allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians and humanitarian relief.

    US President Joe Biden is “pushing all of us to try to get this agreement over the finish line”, said his secretary of state, Antony Blinken.

    Famine ‘imminent’

    The crucial southern Gaza city of Rafah is the main entry point for aid crossing the border from neighbouring Egypt.

    But the World Food Programme said no humanitarian group had been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a month, accusing Israel of blocking access.

    Neighbouring Jordan has coordinated efforts to air-drop supplies over southern Gaza.

    “If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director Carl Skau said.

    Israeli officials have denied blocking supplies, and the army on Wednesday said “50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid” had made it to northern Gaza in recent days.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has left hundreds of thousands displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed in Rafah.

    In a sign of growing desperation among Gazans over living conditions, a rare protest was held Wednesday by residents over the soaring prices of commodities.

    “Everyone is suffering inside these tents,” said Amal Zaghbar, who was displaced and sheltering in a makeshift camp.

    “We’re dying slowly.”

    Israel has repeatedly threatened a ground offensive on Rafah, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying a truce would only delay it, as such an operation was needed for “total victory” over Hamas.

    Egypt — which borders Rafah — says an assault on the overcrowded city would have “catastrophic repercussions”.