Israel begins daily 10-hour ceasefire in Gaza

JERUSALEM/GAZA — Israel said on Sunday it would halt military operations each day for 10 hours in parts of Gaza and allow new aid corridors in the shattered enclave.

Military activity will cease from 10 am to 8 pm, until further notice, in Al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian area that stretches along the coast, in central Deir al-Balah and Gaza City, to the north.

The military said designated secure routes for convoys delivering food and medicine will also be in place between 6 am and 11 pm starting from Sunday.

United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher said staff members would step up efforts to feed the hungry during the pauses in the designated areas.

"Our teams on the ground … will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window," he said in a post on X.

Dozens of Gazans have died of malnutrition in recent weeks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A total of 127 people have died because of malnutrition, including 85 children, since the start of the conflict, the ministry said.

On Saturday, a five-month-old baby, Zainab Abu Haleeb, died of severe acute malnutrition at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, health workers said.

"Three months inside the hospital and this is what I get in return, that she is dead," said her mother, Israa Abu Haleeb, standing next to the baby's father as he held their daughter's body, which was wrapped in a white shroud.

The Egyptian Red Crescent said it would send more than 100 trucks carrying over 1,200 metric tons of food aid to southern Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday.

Hours earlier, Israel began aid airdrops in what it said was an effort to ease the humanitarian conditions in the enclave.

Aid groups have warned of mass hunger among Gaza's 2.2 million people, and international alarm over the humanitarian situation in Gaza has increased, driving French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to recognize the State of Palestine in September.

On Saturday alone, the Palestinian civil defense agency said more than 50 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli strikes and shootings, some as they waited near aid distribution centers.

Israel and the United States appeared on Friday to abandon ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, saying it had become clear that the militants did not want a deal.

Hamas officials rejected the remarks on Saturday. "So far, we have not been informed of any issues regarding the files under discussion in the indirect ceasefire negotiations", Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

Nunu, who is close to Hamas' most senior political officials, said he was "surprised" that Israel and the US had left the talks.

Agencies Via Xinhua