Gaza City

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to return Wednesday to the Middle East in a new bid to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas war.

Following a failed attempt to secure a ceasefire in the war in the Gaza Strip by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last week, a new round of negotiations hosted by key mediator Qatar has begun.

A US-based charity said a consignment of almost 200 tons of food aid had reached starving people in northern Gaza on Tuesday, a week after being dispatched via a maritime route from the Cypriot port of Larnaca.

In a harrowing revelation, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed that more than 13,000 children lost their lives during the Israeli offensive in Gaza. The distressing report, highlighted by Reuters, underscores the profound humanitarian crisis gripping the region, with many children suffering from severe malnutrition and unimaginable trauma.

At least 61 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday, as Israel was preparing to send negotiators to new truce talks in Qatar.

Efforts towards a truce in the Israel-Hamas war appeared to rekindle on Saturday after a new proposal from the Palestinian militant group which also called for more aid into Gaza, where the first food shipment by sea reached shore.

According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israeli attacks on Gaza overnight resulted in the deaths of at least 80 people.

Wafa reported that Israel continued its assaults on various areas of the Gaza Strip, including the Nusayrat Refugee Camp and the city of Gaza.

A first aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in Gaza on Friday as Hamas proposed a new six-week truce in the war.

The European Commission president and the prime ministers of Greece, Italy and Belgium are going to Egypt on Sunday to provide serious economic assistance and a support framework for this difficult time, but they will also try to fortify the Union against the fallout from the region's troubles.

A ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday, witnesses said, in a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian enclave where famine looms after five months of Israel's military campaign.

Israel says it has placed no limits on the amount of aid that it will allow in to Gaza, and blames failures by the aid agencies for delays