The World Food Program (WFP) has warned that the resumed fighting in the Gaza Strip will intensify the “catastrophic hunger crisis” in the territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the seven-day truce when some aid was allowed into the Gaza Strip, the WFP said it was able to scale up its distribution network and reach around 250,500 people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Tragically, this desperately needed progress is now being lost,” the WFP said in a statement late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The renewed fighting makes the distribution of aid almost impossible and endangers the lives of humanitarian workers. Above all, it is a disaster for the civilian population of Gaza, more than 2 million people, whose only lifeline is food assistance.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WFP said that humanitarians require “safe, unimpeded and sustained access” to the Gaza Strip in order to deliver life-saving aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But only a lasting peace can end the suffering and avert the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” the organization added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“WFP calls for a humanitarian cease-fire and urges all leaders to work with the utmost urgency to find political solutions that can end the suffering of families on all sides of this harrowing conflict.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Netanyahu meets freed hostages and families of those still held by Hamas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freed Israeli hostages as well as relatives of those still held by by Hamas  reportedly stormed out of a “tense” meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting took place 60 days after the October 7 terrorist attack saw Hamas  kidnap around 240 people from Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the first time Netanyahu’s war cabinet had heard directly from recently released hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Netanyahu said the former hostages testified about abuse at the hands of Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I heard stories that broke my heart, I heard about the thirst and hunger, about physical and mental abuse,” the Israeli prime minister said at a press conference afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I heard and you also heard, about sexual assault and cases of brutal rape unlike anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Israeli media described the sit-down as tense and participants said it came to an end when around half of them walked out of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I won’t go into the details of what was discussed at the meeting but this entire performance was ugly, insulting, messy,” Dani Miran, a father of one of the hostages who walked out of the meeting, told Israeli television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They say ‘we’ve done this, we’ve done that.’ [Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar is the one who returned our people, not them. It angers me that they say that they dictated things. They hadn’t dictated a single move.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Master, whose partner Andrey is a hostage, added that “it was a very turbulent meeting, many people yelling.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Food Program (WFP) has warned that the resumed fighting in the Gaza Strip will intensify the “catastrophic hunger crisis” in the territory. During the seven-day truce when some aid was allowed into the Gaza Strip, the WFP said it was able to scale up its distribution network and reach around 250,500 people.  “Tragically,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran-iraq-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2599,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions\/2599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}