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      Parts of Gaza Are in Famine, World Food Program Chief Says

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      The director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, says that parts of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a “full-blown famine” that is rapidly spreading throughout the territory after almost seven months of war.Ms. McCain is the second high-profile American leading a U.S. government or U.N. aid effort who has said that there is famine in northern Gaza, although her remarks do not constitute an official declaration, which is a complex bureaucratic process.“There is famine — full-blown famine in the north, and it’s moving its way south,” Ms. McCain said in excerpts released on Friday of an interview with “Meet the Press.” The interviewer, Kristen Welker, asked Ms. McCain to repeat herself.“What you are saying is significant,” Ms. Welker said. “You are saying there is full-blown famine in northern Gaza?”“Yes, I am,” Ms. McCain replied. “Yes, I am.”The first American official to say there was famine in Gaza during the conflict was Samantha Power, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who made her remarks in congressional testimony last month.Ms. McCain was appointed by President Biden as the American ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture in 2021 and became head of the W.F.P., a U.N. agency, last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Palestinians in Gaza Express Gratitude for U.S. Campus Protests

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      Thousands of miles away from the campus protests that have divided Americans, some displaced Palestinians are expressing solidarity with the antiwar demonstrators and gratitude for their efforts.Message of support were written on some tents in the southern city of Rafah, where roughly a million displaced people have sought shelter from the Israeli bombardment and ground fighting that Gazan health officials say have killed more than 34,000 people.“Thank you, American universities,” read one message captured on video by the Reuters news agency. “Thank you, students in solidarity with Gaza your message has reached” us, read another nearby.Tensions have risen at campuses across the United States, with police in riot gear arresting dozens of people at Columbia University on Tuesday night and officers across the country clashing with pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had erected encampments and seized academic buildings at other institutions. The protesters have been calling for universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel, and some have vowed not to back down.The protests have come at a particularly fearful time in Rafah, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel vowing to launch a ground invasion of the city to root out Hamas battalions there despite glimmers of hope for a temporary cease-fire.Palestinians “are very happy that there are still people standing with us,” said Mohammed al-Baradei, a 24-year-old recent graduate from the dentistry program at Al-Azhar University who spoke by phone from Rafah.“The special thing is that this is happening in America and that people there are still aware and the awareness is growing every day for the Palestinian cause,” he added.Akram al-Satri, a 47-year-old freelance journalist sheltering in Rafah, said Gazans are “watching with hope and gratitude the student movement in the United States.”“For us this is a glimmer of hope on a national level,” he added in a voice message on Wednesday.Bisan Owda, a 25-year-old Palestinian who has been documenting the war on social media, said in a video posted to her more than 4.5 million Instagram followers that the campus protests had brought her a new sense of possibility.“I’ve lived my whole life in Gaza Strip and I’ve never felt hope like now,” said Ms. Owda.Nader Ibrahim More

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      Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel from Lebanon

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      Hamas’s military wing said on Monday that it had launched a salvo of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, an apparent attempt by the group to signal that it is still capable of striking within Israel’s borders even as it studies the latest proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said in a statement that it had targeted an Israeli military position in Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in Israel’s far north, with a “concentrated rocket barrage” from southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement that most of the roughly 20 launches that crossed the border had been intercepted, and that it had responded by striking the source of fire. There were no injuries or damage, the military said.Though Hamas is based in Gaza, many of its leaders are exiled in Lebanon, where the group has a sizable presence and operates largely out of Palestinian refugee camps. Since the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7 prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza, Hamas has occasionally launched rocket attacks into northern Israel from within Lebanon’s borders, though its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has launched far more. Both groups are backed by Iran. Israel has also targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon in deadly strikes.Walid al Kilani, Hamas’s spokesman in Lebanon, said the attack was “the minimum duty” given Israel’s continued attacks in Gaza. “We know that Hezbollah is doing its duty and more, but the battlefield requires everyone to participate,” Mr. Kilani said.The launches on Monday, although muted in their impact, highlighted Hamas’s continuing ability to threaten Israel with rocket fire despite more than 200 days of a devastating Israeli air and ground offensive that has decimated the group’s military capabilities in Gaza. Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the attack was likely an attempt by Hamas to signal that it was “still part of the fight.” While it was largely symbolic, it could also be a means to apply pressure amid the Gaza cease-fire negotiations, he said.Data compiled by the online website Rocket Alert — which tracks warnings of rocket launches using Israeli military figures — shows that there were just 37 alerts in April in response to detected rocket fire from Gaza, compared to around 7,300 in October at the onset of the war. More than six months into the conflict, the data shows a significant drop-off in the number of warnings of rockets from Gaza.Alerts indicating rocket fire from Lebanon, however, have remained largely steady, the data shows. Most of those are launched by Hezbollah, but Hamas continues to launch attacks from Lebanon with Hezbollah’s blessing.Amin Hoteit, a military analyst and former brigadier general in the Lebanese army, said the latest attack was a sign of the “integrated front of operations” among Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in the region.Hwaida Saad More

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      Israeli Officials Believe I.C.C. Is Preparing Arrest Warrants Over Hamas War

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      Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials.The Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is weighing arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas.If the court proceeds, the Israeli officials could potentially be accused of preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and pursuing an excessively harsh response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to two of the five officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.The Israeli officials did not disclose the nature of the information that led them to be concerned about potential I.C.C. action, and the court did not comment on the matter.Arrest warrants from the court would probably be seen in much of the world as a humbling moral rebuke, particularly to Israel, which for months has faced international backlash over its conduct in Gaza, including from President Biden, who called it “over the top.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Israel Poised to Invade Rafah, Negotiators Try Again for Cease-Fire Deal

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      Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was headed to Saudi Arabia in search of an agreement that would pause the fighting and free hostages held by Hamas.As international diplomats converged in the Middle East on Sunday seeking a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, Israel wrestled with whether to go forward with a ground invasion of Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion in the enclave, according to Israeli officials and analysts.Israeli officials have said repeatedly that they plan to move into Rafah, but over the weekend, they made clear they were open to holding off if it meant they could secure the release of Israeli hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said Sunday that while “entering Rafah is important for the long battle against Hamas,” freeing the remaining hostages, whose number is estimated at about 100, “is urgent and much more important.”As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed for Saudi Arabia on Sunday to meet with officials from a half-dozen Arab nations, an American official said Mr. Blinken’s top priority was a cease-fire deal that would include the release of all hostages.“It would allow for all those hostages to get out,” John Kirby, the U.S. national security spokesman, said on the ABC News program “This Week.” “And to, of course, allow for easier aid access in places in Gaza, particularly in the north. So he’s going to be working at that very, very hard.”Israel has been under intense international pressure — including from the United States — not to invade Rafah, in Gaza’s south, where more than a million Palestinians have fled the war and are already living in dire conditions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      World Central Kitchen Will Resume Operations in Gaza

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      The World Central Kitchen said on Sunday that it would resume operations in Gaza with a local team of Palestinian aid workers, nearly a month after the Israeli military killed seven of the organization’s workers in targeted drone strikes on their convoy.Israeli military officials have said the attack was a “grave mistake” and cited a series of failures, including a breakdown in communication and violations of the military’s operating procedures.The Washington-based aid group said that it was still calling for an independent, international investigation into the April 1 attack and that it had received “no concrete assurances” that the Israeli military’s operational procedures had changed. But the “humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire,” the aid group’s chief operating officer, Erin Gore, said in a statement.“We are restarting our operation with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding as many people as possible,” she said.The aid group said it had distributed more than 43 million meals in Gaza so far and that it had trucks carrying the equivalent of nearly eight million meals waiting to enter the enclave through the Rafah crossing in the south. World Central Kitchen said it was also planning to send trucks to Gaza through Jordan and that it would open a kitchen in Al-Mawasi, a small seaside village that the Israeli military designated as a “humanitarian zone” safe for civilians, though attacks there have continued.Six of the seven workers killed on April 1 were from Western nations — three from Britain, one from Australia, one from Poland and one with dual citizenship of the United States and Canada. The seventh was Palestinian. They were killed in back-to-back Israeli drone strikes on their vehicles as they traveled toward Rafah after unloading food aid that had arrived by sea.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blinken to Meet With Arab Officials in Saudi Arabia About Israel-Gaza War

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      The U.S. secretary of state plans to raise the issues of hostages held by Hamas, a potential cease-fire, humanitarian aid and a long-term political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will travel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday to speak with top Arab officials and try to figure out possible solutions for the thorniest issues of the Israel-Gaza war, including humanitarian aid, reconstruction and hostages, the State Department said on Saturday.One of Mr. Blinken’s priorities on Monday and Tuesday will be discussing “ongoing efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages,” a department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in a statement. He added that Mr. Blinken would underscore his belief that it is Hamas that stands in the way of a cease-fire for the Palestinian people, since the group is not budging on the hostage negotiations.Saudi Arabia is hosting a three-day meeting of the World Economic Forum, and top Arab officials, including Mr. Blinken’s diplomatic counterparts, are attending. They include senior ministers from Qatar and Egypt, which have been the two Arab mediators in multiple rounds of talks over a potential hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas.The forum’s website says Mr. Blinken will be in a half-hour public “conversation” starting at 12:45 p.m. on Monday, the final day of the conference.American officials are pushing for Hamas to release about 40 of the 100 or more hostages it is holding in exchange for the liberation of many more Palestinian prisoners and a six-week cease-fire. U.S. officials say that would be the first step in securing a permanent cease-fire, and Israel supports the proposal. However, Hamas has insisted on a commitment to a permanent cease-fire, and many Arab officials, including in Saudi Arabia, have been calling for the same; those officials say that such a cease-fire should take place immediately.Posters of hostages who were taken on Oct. 7 are displayed in Tel Aviv. American officials are pushing for Hamas to release about 40 of the 100 or more people it is still holding. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Aid Flows to Gaza Are Rising, U.N. says, but More Is Needed

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      Israel says the number of trucks entering the enclave has doubled to an average of 400 a day. The U.N. disputes that, but agrees that the pace of deliveries has quickened.Under intense international scrutiny, Israel has expedited the flow of aid into Gaza this month, but humanitarian groups say that more is needed as severe hunger grips the enclave, particularly in the devastated north.Israel’s efforts — which include opening new aid routes — have been acknowledged in the last week by the Biden administration and international aid officials. More aid trucks appear to be reaching Gaza, especially the north, where experts have warned for weeks that famine is imminent.The increased levels of aid are a good sign, but it is too early to say that looming famine is no longer a risk, said Arif Husain, the chief economist at the United Nations World Food Program.“This cannot just happen for a day or a week — it has to happen every single day for the foreseeable future,” Mr. Husain said, adding that the main need was for more food, water and medicine. “If we can do this, then we can ease the pain, we can avert famine.”The aid groups have long complained that only a trickle of aid is entering the enclave, blaming harsh war conditions, strict inspections and limits on the number of crossing points. Israel has maintained that the restrictions are necessary to ensure that neither weapons nor supplies fall into the hands of Hamas.Trucks lined up on the Egyptian side of the border near the Kerem Shalom crossing. Israel says an average of 400 trucks are crossing into Gaza each day, but the United Nations counts less than half that.Atef Safadi/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More