hungry

Two federal judges told the U.S. Department of Agriculture in separate rulings Friday that it must begin using billions of dollars in contingency funding to provide federal food assistance to poor American families despite the federal shutdown, but gave the agency until Monday to decide how to do so.

Both Obama-appointed judges rejected Trump administration arguments that more than $5 billion in USDA contingency funds could not legally be tapped to continue Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for nearly 42 million Americans while the federal government remains closed. But both also left unclear how exactly the relief should be provided, or when it will arrive for millions of families set to lose benefits starting Saturday.

The two rulings came almost simultaneously Friday.

In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stopped short of granting California and a coalition of 24 other Democrat-led states a temporary restraining order they had requested. But she ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their arguments that the USDA’s total shutoff of SNAP benefits — despite having billions in emergency contingency funds on hand — was unlawful.

Talwani gave USDA until Monday to tell her whether they would authorize “only reduced SNAP benefits” using the contingency funding — which would not cover the total $8.5 billion to $9 billion needed for all November benefits, according to the USDA — or would authorize “full SNAP benefits using both the Contingency Funds and additional available funds.”

Separately, in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John McConnell granted a temporary restraining order requested by nonprofit organizations, ruling from the bench that SNAP must be funded with at least the contingency funds, and requesting an update on progress by Monday.

The White House referred questions about the ruling to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if the administration would appeal the rulings.

The Massachusetts order was a win for California and the other Democrat-led states, which sued over the interruption to SNAP benefits — which were previously known as food stamps — as Republicans and Democrats continue to squabble over reopening the government in Washington.

However, it will not mean that all of the nation’s SNAP recipients — including 5.5 million Californians — will be spared a lapse in their food aid, state officials stressed, as state and local food banks continued scrambling to prepare for a deluge of need starting Saturday.

Asked Thursday if a ruling in the states’ favor would mean SNAP funds would be immediately loaded onto CalFresh and other benefits cards, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office helped bring the states’ lawsuit — said “the answer is no, unfortunately.”

“Our best estimates are that [SNAP benefit] cards could be loaded and used in about a week,” he said, calling that lag “problematic.”

“There could be about a week where people are hungry and need food,” he said. For new applicants to the program, he said, it could take even longer.

The rulings came as the now monthlong shutdown continued Friday with no immediate end in sight. The Senate adjourned Thursday with no plans to meet again until Monday.

It also came after President Trump called Thursday for the Senate to end the shutdown by first ending the filibuster, a longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections to legislation. The rule has traditionally been favored by lawmakers as a means of blocking particularly partisan measures, and is currently being used by Democrats to resist the will of the current 53-seat Republican majority.

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Chief Executive Michael Flood, standing alongside Bonta as members of the California National Guard worked behind them stuffing food boxes, said his organization was preparing for massive lines come Saturday, the first of the month.

He said he expected long lines of families in need of food appearing outside food distribution locations throughout the region, just as they did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a disaster type of situation for us here in Los Angeles County, throughout the state of California and throughout the country,” Flood said.

“5.5 million Californians, 1.5 million children and adults in L.A. County alone, will be left high and dry — illegally so, unnecessarily so, in a way that is morally bankrupt,” Bonta said.

Bonta blamed the shutdown on Trump and his administration, and said the USDA has billions of dollars in contingency funds designed to ensure SNAP benefits continue during emergencies and broke the law by not tapping those funds in the current situation.

Bonta said SNAP benefits have never been disrupted during previous federal government shutdowns, and should never have been disrupted during this shutdown, either.

“That was avoidable,” he said. “Trump created this problem.”

The Trump administration has blamed the shutdown and the looming disruption to SNAP benefits entirely on Democrats in Congress, who have blocked short-term spending measures to restart the government and fund SNAP. Democrats are holding out to pressure Republicans into rescinding massive cuts to subsidies that help millions of Americans afford health insurance.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, previously told The Times that Democrats should be the ones getting asked “when the shutdown will end,” because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”

“Americans are suffering because of Democrats,” Jackson said.

In their opposition to the states’ request for a temporary restraining order requiring the disbursement of funds, attorneys for the USDA argued that using emergency funds to cover November SNAP benefits would deplete funds meant to provide “critical support in the event of natural disasters and other uncontrollable catastrophes,” and could actually cause more disruption to benefits down the line.

They wrote that SNAP requires between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month, and the USDA’s contingency fund has only about $5.25 billion, meaning it could not fully fund November benefits even if it did release contingency funding. Meanwhile, “a partial payment has never been made — and for good reason,” because it would force every state to recalculate benefits for recipients and then recalibrate their systems to provide the new amounts, they wrote.

That “would take weeks, if it can be done at all,” and would then have to be undone in order to issue December benefits at normal levels, assuming the shutdown would have lifted by then, they wrote. “The disruption this would entail, with each State required to repeatedly reprogram its systems, would lead to chaos and uncertainty for the following months, even after a lapse concludes,” they wrote.

Simply pausing the benefits to immediately be reissued whenever the shutdown ends is the smarter and less disruptive course of action, they argued.

During a Thursday hearing in the states’ case, Talwani had suggested that existing rules required action by the government to prevent the sort of suffering that a total disruption to food assistance would cause, regardless of whatever political showdown is occurring between the parties in Washington.

“If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”

In addition to suing the administration, California and its leaders have been rushing to ensure that hungry families have something to eat in coming days. Gov. Gavin Newsom directed $80 million to food banks to stock up on provisions, and activated the National Guard to help package food for those who need it.

Counties have also been working to offset the need, including by directing additional funding to food banks and other resource centers and asking partners in the private sector to assist.

Dozens of organizations in California have written to Newsom calling on him to use state funds to fully cover the missing federal benefits, in order to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude,” but Newsom has suggested that is not possible given the scale of funding withheld.

According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. Of the 5.5 million Californian recipients, children and older people account for more than 63%.

This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.

O’Connor has enjoyed the best year of her career in 2025.

European Indoor bronze, World Indoor silver, World University Games gold and now a World Championships silver medal.

As she alluded to in the build-up, O’Connor’s success was made possible by a mindset shift after finishing 14th at last year’s Paris Olympics.

“After Paris I genuinely did have a chat with myself. I felt like I know the athlete that I can be and I had to turn to my dad and ask him did he think that himself and the team that we had around me would be able to bring me to where I wanted to get myself to,” she explained.

“I suppose we had a pretty tough conversation where I kind of set out my goals to him and told him that I was ready to put my head down and work really hard towards them, but I needed everybody else to also be there with me.

“We had to make a few changes where I felt like if the coaches were expecting more of me, I would expect more of myself, so I made sure that I was hitting these really high standards that my coaches are setting for me.”

Going into the World Championships in Tokyo, she aimed to surpass 6,500 points.

She cleared that mark by some distance, with five personal bests helping her reach 6,714 points to come second behind gold medallist Anna Hall of the United States (6,888).

And O’Connor still believes there is more to come as she builds towards the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“That’s one of the most exciting things for me is that I just scored 6,700 points and there’s so much there right now.

“So, what can I do with another winter behind me and another year behind me and another two years? Then obviously get to the Olympics, which will be another three.

“I don’t think I’ve reached my limit at any of the events.”

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The campaign billboards adorning the streets of Bolivia for Sunday’s presidential election make grand promises: A solution to the dire economic crisis within 100 days, an end to fuel shortages and bread lines, unity for a divided nation. One vice presidential candidate pledges to “Make Bolivia Sexy Again.”

In their efforts to draw votes, all eight candidates — two right-wing front-runners, a conservative centrist and splintered factions of Bolivia’s long-dominant left-wing — are vowing drastic change, launching searing attacks on the status quo and selling a message of hope.

But for many Bolivians, hope has already hardened into cynicism.

Slogans fail to break through

Promises of quick fixes — like right-wing candidate Samuel Doria Medina’s pledge to stabilize the upside-down economy within “100 days, dammit!” — fall flat. Vandals add extra zeroes to his campaign posters, suggesting a million days might be a more realistic goal.

Tuto, the nickname of Jorge Quiroga, the other right-wing favorite, turns up on city walls with its first letter swapped to form a Spanish insult.

Some signs for left-wing candidate Andrónico Rodríguez, pledging “unity above all” have been defaced to read “unity in the face of lines.”

And few know what to do with the acronym of the governing party candidate, Eduardo del Castillo: “We Are a National Option with Authentic Ideas.” (No, it’s not any catchier in Spanish).

Yet for all their disenchantment with politicians, Bolivians are counting down the days until elections, united in their relief that, no matter what happens, leftist President Luis Arce will leave office after five difficult years.

Inflation is soaring. The central bank has burned through its dollar reserves. Imported goods have vanished from shelves.

“I have no faith in any candidate. There’s no one new in this race,” Alex Poma Quispe, 25, told the Associated Press from his family’s fruit truck, where he slept curled into a ball in the front seat Wednesday for a second straight night, stranded with 50 other trucks in a fuel line en route from farms in the Yungas region to markets in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz.

“The only thing we’re enthusiastic about is Arce leaving.”

New campaigns, old faces

A bitter power struggle between Arce and former President Evo Morales has shattered their hegemonic Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, giving the right-wing opposition its best shot at victory in two decades.

“I’ve seen that socialism has brought nothing good to this country,” said Victor Ticona, 24, a music student, as he left Quiroga’s campaign rally Wednesday. “We have to become more competitive in the world.”

Doria Medina, a 66-year-old multimillionaire businessman, and Quiroga, a 65-year-old former vice president who briefly assumed the presidency in 2001 after then-President Hugo Banzer resigned with cancer, are familiar faces in Bolivian politics. Both have run for president three times before.

While their calls for economic freedom and foreign investment appeal to voters desperate for change, they have struggled to stir up excitement. Nearly 30% of voters are undecided, according to polls.

Doria Medina, a former minister of planning, acknowledged in a recent social media video that “people say I have no charisma, that I’m too serious.”

Quiroga’s association with Banzer, a former military dictator who brutally quashed dissent over seven corruption-plagued years before being democratically elected, has turned some voters off.

“It was a bloody era,” recalled 52-year-old taxi driver Juan Carlos Mamani. “For me, Tuto is the definition of the old guard.”

At the pumps, not the polls

Poma Quispe and his 24-year-old brother Weimar have no idea who’d they vote for — or if they’ll vote at all.

Voting is compulsory in Bolivia, and about 7.9 million people in the country of 12 million are eligible to cast ballots in Sunday’s election. Non-voters face various financial penalties.

Over the last year, fuel shortages have brought much of Bolivia to a standstill. Truckers waste days at a time queuing at empty gas stations around Bolivia, just to keep their vehicles moving.

The diesel arrives on no set schedule, and the rhythm of life is forced to adapt. If the diesel arrives before Sunday, the Poma Quispe brothers will vote.

If not, “there’s no way we’re giving up our spot in line for those candidates,” Weimar Poma Quispe said.

Personal drama over political debate

This year’s election coincides with the 200th anniversary of Bolivia’s independence.

But instead of celebrating, many Bolivians are questioning the validity of their democracy and state-directed economic model. Crowds booed at President Arce during his bicentennial speech earlier this month. His government invited left-wing presidents from across Latin America to attend the event; only the president of Honduras showed.

The lack of enthusiasm among ordinary Bolivians and beleaguered officials seems matched by that of the candidates.

Authorities allowed televised presidential debates — banned under Morales — for the first time in 20 years. The front-runners turned up to just one of them.

Personal attacks overshadowed policy discussions. Doria Medina accused Del Castillo of ties to drug traffickers, while Del Castillo mocked the businessman’s record of failed presidential bids. Rodríguez and Quiroga traded barbs over alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings.

Chasing the youth vote

The median age in Bolivia is 26. For comparison, it is 39 in China and the United States.

Having grown up under the government of Morales and his MAS party, many young Bolivians are restive, disillusioned by current prospects as they become more digitally connected than any generation before them.

Quiroga in particular has energized young voters with his running mate, JP Velasco, a successful 38-year-old tech entrepreneur with no political experience who vows to reverse a brain drain in Bolivia and create opportunities for youth in exploiting the country’s abundant reserves of lithium, the critical metal for electric vehicle batteries, and developing data centers.

Young crowds packed Quiroga’s Wednesday night campaign rally, even as 20-somethings in goth makeup and tight-stretch dresses expressed more interest in the lively cumbia bands than the political speeches.

Others sported red MAGA-style caps with Velasco’s slogan, “Make Bolivia Sexy Again.” Cap-wearers offered varying answers on when Bolivia was last “sexy,” with some saying never, but agreed it meant attractive to foreign investors.

“It won’t just be tech companies coming here, McDonald’s might even come,” Velasco told the crowd, eliciting whoops and howls. “Young people, if you go abroad, let it be for vacation.”

Debre and Valdez write for the Associated Press.

The hashtag gains global popularity as Israel continues to kill Palestinians seeking food and children die of malnutrition.

Hashtag #GazaIsStarving is trending across social media as Palestinians face a worsening hunger crisis caused by Israel’s relentless bombardment of the enclave and allowing limited aid.

On Sunday, the Arabic version of the hashtag had appeared in more than 227,000 posts on X, where it recently topped the platform’s trending list. On Instagram, the hashtag has been used in more than 5,000 posts.

Most posts are attributing to a post from October 31, 2023, quoting Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah’s warning: “People have started going hungry.”

Nearly two years later, the phrase has become a global rallying cry as Israeli forces kill dozens of starving Palestinians every day.

The social media trend also came amid warnings from the United Nations and other aid agencies that Israel is starving Palestinian civilians, including more than a million children, by blocking food and medicines from entering the enclave.

Since May, nearly 900 Palestinians have been killed near aid sites run by GHF, a notorious aid agency backed by Israel and the United States.

Under the hashtag #GazaIsStarving, social media platforms have been flooded with images and videos showing the extent of the humanitarian crisis, which many countries and rights groups have called a genocide.

The following X post shows Palestinian children visibly suffering from malnutrition during medical examinations at a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) clinic in Gaza City. Israel has banned UNRWA from distributing aid in Gaza.

#صور | أطفال يعانون من سوء التغذية خلال فحصهم في أحد النقاط الطبية التابعة للأونروا بمدينة غزة#غزه_تموت_جوعاً#GazaIsStarving#FamineInGaza#غزة_تقتل_جوعاً#StarvingGaza#FreePalestine#OpenRafahNow#GazaStarvingToDeath pic.twitter.com/VN4GitxrH2

— حسين الفضلي (@Huseinalfdl) July 19, 2025

The following July 10, 2025 video, released on Saturday and verified by Al Jazeera, shows Israeli security forces using pepper spray on Palestinians seeking food at a GHF aid distribution hub in Shakoush area of southern Rafah.

The scene below illustrates the severity of Gaza’s food crisis and the level of desperation for aid, with children clashing over rations and scraping the bottoms of pots for food in the north of Gaza.

The following video, filmed on July 19 near a GHF distribution site in Rafah, captures civilians fleeing the scene as Israeli tanks and bulldozers are seen moving through the area.

The following verified photos taken on July 19 show Yazan Abu Foul, a two-year-old child suffering from severe malnutrition, amid restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and essential supplies in Shati refugee camp to the west of Gaza City.

Food intended to feed 27,000 starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan will soon be incinerated in the wake of President Donald Trump’s closure of the United States’ aid agency.

A senior US official on Wednesday said nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, to be used as emergency food for malnourished young children, expired this month while sitting in a warehouse in Dubai.

Under questioning by lawmakers, Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state in charge of management, tied the decision to the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which closed its doors on July 1.

“I think that this was just a casualty of the shutdown of USAID,” Rigas said, adding that he was “distressed” that the food went to waste.

Aid officials managed to save 622 tonnes of the energy-dense biscuits in June – sending them to Syria, Bangladesh and Myanmar – but 496 tonnes, worth $793,000 before they expired this month, will be destroyed, according to two internal USAID memos reviewed by Reuters, dated May 5 and May 19, and four sources familiar with the matter.

The wasted biscuits will be sent to landfills or incinerated in the United Arab Emirates, two sources said. That will cost the US government an additional $100,000, according to the May 5 memo verified by three sources familiar with the matter.

Trump has said the US pays disproportionately for foreign aid, and he wants other countries to shoulder more of the burden. His administration announced plans to shut down USAID in January, leaving more than 60,000 tonnes of food aid stuck in stores around the world, Reuters reported in May.

The food aid stuck in Dubai was fortified wheat biscuits, which are calorie-rich and typically deployed in crisis conditions where people lack cooking facilities, “providing immediate nutrition for a child or adult”, according to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said lawmakers had specifically raised the issue of the food with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March. In May, he promised lawmakers that no food aid would be wasted.

“A government that is put on notice – here are resources that will save 27,000 starving kids, can you please distribute them or give them to someone who can?

“Who decides, no, we would rather keep the warehouse locked, let the food expire, and then burn it?”

Rigas said that the US remained the world’s largest donor, and he promised to learn further details about the biscuits.

“I do want to find out what happened here and get to the ground truth,” he said.

The US is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38 percent of all contributions recorded by the UN. It disbursed $61bn in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.

The Trump administration notified Congress in March that USAID would fire almost all of its staff in two rounds on July 1 and September 2, as it prepared to shut down. In a statement on July 1 marking the transfer of USAID to the State Department, Rubio said the US was abandoning what he called a charity-based model and would focus on empowering countries to grow sustainably.

The WFP says 319 million people have limited access to food worldwide. Of those, 1.9 million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.

More than 700 Palestinians have been killed trying to get food in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks, according to new figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, spurring renewed condemnation of a contentious United States and Israeli-backed aid scheme.

The Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 743 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,891 others were injured while seeking assistance at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution sites.

The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid multiple reports that its contractors as well as Israeli forces have opened fire on aid seekers.

“The tragedy is that this is again a conservative reading of casualties who were at these distribution points, waiting for food parcels,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said of the ministry’s latest figures.

Reporting from Gaza City, Mahmoud said the attacks on aid seekers come as Palestinian families are desperate to feed their families amid dire shortages caused by Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

“People are going hungry. People are rationing supplies. A lot of families are not eating. Mothers here skip meals in order to provide for their children,” he said.

Earlier this week, a report by The Associated Press news agency quoted American contractors who said live ammunition and stun grenades have been fired at Palestinian civilians seeking aid at GHF distribution points.

Two unnamed US contractors told AP that heavily armed staff members appeared to be doing whatever they wanted.

The GHF denied the news agency’s reporting as “categorically false” and said it takes “the safety and security of [its] sites extremely seriously”.

The administration of US President Donald Trump also has stood by the GHF, with a State Department spokesperson telling reporters on Wednesday that the group is the “one entity that has gotten food and aid into the Gaza Strip”.

In late June, the Trump administration pledged $30m in direct funding for the organisation.

On Saturday, the GHF said two US workers at one of its sites in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis were injured when grenades were thrown at them at the end of food distribution. “The injured Americans are receiving medical treatment and are in stable condition,” the group said.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.

Leading humanitarian and human rights groups have demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, which they accused of “forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarized zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties”.

Amnesty International has described the group’s operations as an “inhumane and deadly militarized scheme”.

“All the evidence gathered, including testimonies which Amnesty International is receiving from victims and witnesses, suggest that the GHF was designed so as to placate international concerns while constituting another tool of Israel’s genocide,” Amnesty said.

Still, faced with dire shortages of food, water and other humanitarian supplies under Israel’s blockade, many Palestinians in Gaza say they have no choice but to seek assistance from the group, despite the risks.

“I was forced to go to the aid distribution centre simply because my kids had not eaten for three days in a row,” Majid Abu Laban, a Palestinian man who was wounded in an attack at a GHF site, told Al Jazeera.

“We try to fool our children by all means, but they are starving,” Abu Laban said.

“So I decided to risk my life and head to [an aid distribution point] at Netzarim,” he said, referring to an Israeli military-established corridor south of Gaza City.

“I took the road at midnight hoping to get some food. As crowds rushed in, Israeli forces fired artillery shells at us. In the chaos, everyone was just trying to survive.”

Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have killed dozens of Palestinians, including people seeking food at aid distribution hubs, as the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave deteriorates by the day.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Sunday that at least 72 people were killed since dawn in Israeli strikes targeting multiple locations across Gaza, including at least 47 in Gaza City and the north of the territory.

Al Jazeera’s Moath al-Kahlout, reporting from Gaza City, described “catastrophic” scenes at the al-Ahli Hospital in the northern city as dozens of wounded civilians sought help following Israeli strikes on the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods, as well as al-Zawiya market.

“There are too many wounded civilians here, including children. Many are lying on the ground because there are not enough beds or medical supplies to treat them. This facility is struggling to cope due to severe shortages,” he said.

“The Israeli military has dropped leaflets in eastern Gaza City, ordering civilians to move south. These leaflets are often followed by intense and repeated attacks, resulting in the large number of casualties we are witnessing now.”

The victims on Sunday also included at least five Palestinian aid seekers killed near food distribution centres run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) north of Rafah, according to medics.

Since the United States- and Israel-backed GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a punishing Israeli blockade, Israeli soldiers have regularly shot at Palestinians near distribution centres, killing more than 580 people, and wounding more than 4,000, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

A recent report by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they had received orders to fire at crowds of unarmed aid seekers to disperse them.

Geoffrey Nice, a human rights lawyer, told Al Jazeera that the killings going on around the GHF are “inexplicable”.

“What is absolutely astonishing to outsiders is that it is in the business of apparently providing aid where it is desperately needed, and those providing aid with you end up shooting dead hundreds of people,” said Nice, who also took part in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

‘Most vulnerable are dying’

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip is worsening, with babies and toddlers dying due to a lack of nutrients.

Christy Black, an Australian nurse volunteering in Gaza City, said the hospital she’s based in is short of medical supplies, including formula for pregnant women who require nasogastric feeding. That leaves many without the nutrients needed to lactate – as well as baby formula, she said.

“Our most vulnerable are dying,” Black told Al Jazeera. “We’ve seen a couple of babies die over the last couple of days in Gaza City. It’s really desperate here.”

Malnourishment also makes it difficult to heal from wounds, she said, adding that there is a significant uptick in respiratory illnesses due to the number of bombs being dropped on Gaza.

“We’re seeing children going through the rubbish trying to find something to eat … Children who might be nine or 10 years old that look like two-year-olds,” she added.

Ceasefire talks

With Israeli bombardment of the besieged enclave relentless, there are indications of a fresh impetus to end the war in the wake of the US and Israeli bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities and the ensuing ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump seemed determined to seal a truce. “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!” he said in a Social Truth post. His comments came after he said he believed a ceasefire could be reached within a week. “I think it’s close. I just spoke to some of the people involved,” Trump said on Saturday.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the push for a truce, he said in the past week that behind-the-scenes talks have been taking place to try and secure a 60-day pause in fighting.

Negotiations revolve around a proposal put forward by the US back in March to extend phase one of a ceasefire that Israel violated by resuming its bombing of Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said, “Netanyahu is under a lot of pressure as Trump has been quite outspoken for some time that he wants to see a ceasefire in Gaza.”

“And prior to Israel’s attacks on Iran, just about two weeks ago, there was a lot of pressure from European allies because of the Israeli military’s conduct in the Gaza Strip,” she said.

In the meantime, the Jerusalem District Court cancelled this week’s hearings in Netanyahu’s long-running corruption trial, accepting a request that the Israeli leader made, citing classified diplomatic and security grounds.

It was unclear whether a social media post by Trump – one suggesting the trial could interfere with Netanyahu’s ability to join negotiations with Hamas and Iran – influenced the court’s decision.

The ruling, seen by Reuters, said that new reasons provided by Netanyahu, the head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad and the military intelligence chief justified cancelling the hearings.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – all of which he denies. He has cast the trial against him as an orchestrated left-wing witch-hunt meant to topple a democratically elected right-wing leader.

On Friday, the court rejected a request by Netanyahu to delay his testimony for the next two weeks because of diplomatic and security matters following the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, which ended last Tuesday.

He was due to take the stand on Monday for cross-examination.

“It is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. He said Washington, having given billions of dollars worth of aid to Israel, was not going to “stand for this”.

A spokesperson for the Israeli prosecution declined to comment on Trump’s post. Netanyahu reposted Trump’s comments on X and added: “Thank you again, @realDonaldTrump. Together, we will make the Middle East Great Again!”

Trump said Netanyahu was “right now” negotiating a deal with Hamas, though neither leader provided details, and though officials from both sides have voiced scepticism over prospects for a ceasefire soon.

SHOPPERS find there’s an elephant in the room — as a peckish pachyderm helps ­himself to grub at a grocery store.

The 25-year-old male munched on sweet rice cakes and chicken’s eggs after barging into the shop in Thailand on Monday.

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Even getting wedged under the low ceiling did not stop him as he searched the aisles for treats — without a shopping list, as elephants never forget.

Shopkeeper Khamploy Gakaew eventually took him to tusk, ushering the wild animal out of her store.

She said: “This was the first time an elephant had visited the store. I hope he doesn’t come back.

“I was worried about the damage he could cause.

“He ate sweet, crispy rice cakes and chicken eggs before walking out.

“I was surprised to see it eating sweet food, as elephants usually search for something salty.”

She added: “We see elephants occasionally, and they will bother street food vendors for food. But this was unusual.”

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The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says that “hordes of hungry people” have broken into a food supply warehouse in central Gaza.

Two people are reported to have died and several others injured in the incident, the programme said, adding that it was still confirming details.

Video footage from AFP news agency showed crowds breaking into the Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah and taking bags of flour and cartons of food as gunshots rang out. It was not immediately clear where the gunshots came from.

In a statement, the WFP said humanitarian needs in Gaza had “spiralled out of control” after an almost three-month Israeli blockade that was eased last week.

The WFP said that food supplies had been pre-positioned at the warehouse for distribution.

The programme added: “Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve.”

The WFP said it had “consistently warned of alarming and deteriorating conditions on the ground, and the risks imposed by limiting humanitarian aid to hungry people in desperate need of assistance”.

Israeli authorities said on Wednesday that 121 trucks belonging to the UN and the international community carrying humanitarian aid including flour and food were transferred into Gaza.

Israel began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week. However, UN Middle East envoy Sigrid Kaag told the UN Security Council this was “comparable to a lifeboat after the ship has sunk” when everyone in Gaza was facing the risk of famine.

A controversial US and Israeli-backed group – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – was also established as a private aid distribution system. It uses US security contractors and bypasses the UN, which said it was unworkable and unethical.

The US and Israeli governments say the GHF, which has set up four distribution centres in southern and central Gaza, is preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas, which the armed group denies doing.

The UN Humans Right Office said 47 people were injured on Tuesday after people overran one of the GHF distribution sites in the southern city of Rafah, a day after it began working there.

Another senior UN official told journalists on Wednesday that desperate crowds were looting cargo off of UN aid trucks.

Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN’s humanitarian office for the occupied Palestinian territories, also said there was no evidence that Hamas was diverting aid coordinated through credible humanitarian channels.

He said the real theft of relief goods since the beginning of the war had been carried out by criminal gangs which the Israeli army “allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point in Gaza”.

The UN has argued that a surge of aid like the one during the recent ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas would reduce the threat of looting by hungry people and allow it to make full use of its well-established network of distribution across the Gaza Strip.