UK warns Israel as Cairo ceasefire talks continue and Ramadan looms

The UK will warn Israel that its patience is running thin over the "dreadful suffering" in Gaza, foreign minister David Cameron said on Tuesday (March 6).

Cameron, due to meet Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, told parliament that Israel's handling of aid for Gaza, as the occupying power, raised questions over its compliance with international law.

"We are facing a situation of dreadful suffering in Gaza," Cameron told the upper House of Lords. "I spoke some weeks ago about the danger of this tipping into famine and the danger of illness tipping into disease; and we are now at that point.

"People are dying of hunger; people are dying of otherwise preventable diseases."

The UK initially gave its backing to Israel's assault on Gaza in response to an attack by the militant group Hamas on October 7 that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages back to the enclave.

But Cameron, a former prime minister, has stepped up calls for a ceasefire in recent weeks.

European Commission president Usrula von der Leyen is due to travel to Cyprus later this week as the bloc is working towards establishing a possible humanitarian corridor in support of the population in Gaza through the Mediterranean island, her spokesperson said on Wednesday (March 7).

Teen dies of dehydration and malnutrition

Famine looms over Gaza as aid supplies have dwindled to barely a trickle. Swathes of territory are completely cut off from food. Gaza's few functioning hospitals, overwhelmed by the wounded, are now filling with children starving to death.

Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said on Wednesday a girl of 15 had died in a Gaza City hospital from dehydration and malnutrition, describing her as the 18th such victim in just over a week. Reuters could not verify the deaths.

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Hamas said on Wednesday it is pressing on with efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza with Israel despite the absence of Israeli negotiators from talks in Egypt.

Negotiators from the Palestinian militant group, Qatar and Egypt are in Cairo trying to secure a 40-day ceasefire in the war between Israel and the Islamist group in time for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins early next week.

"We are showing the required flexibility in order to reach a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our people, but the occupation is still evading the entitlements of this agreement," Hamas said in a statement.

Israeli forces, aiming to eradicate Hamas following its deadly raid on Israel on October 7, have continued bombarding Gaza during three days of talks in Cairo, and the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave has deteriorated further.

Residents of Qatari-funded housing districts in Khan Younis reported explosions all night from the air and ground. Israeli warplanes also struck areas in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp and the city of Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, and part of the southern city of Rafah, witnesses said.

Ceasefire text third draft

The deal presented to Hamas would free some of the hostages it still holds following the October 7 attack, in which Israel said 1,200 people were killed and 253 abducted.

Aid to Gaza would be increased to try to avert famine as hospitals treat acutely malnourished children, and Hamas would provide a list of all the hostages held in Gaza.

The United States on Tuesday revised language in a draft UN Security Council resolution to back "an immediate ceasefire of roughly six weeks in Gaza together with the release of all hostages", according to the text seen by agencies.

The third revision of the text - first proposed by the U.S. two weeks ago - now reflects blunt remarks by Vice President Kamala Harris urging Israel to do more to ease the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza.

The release of sick, wounded, elderly and women hostages would result in an immediate ceasefire in Gaza of at least six weeks, the White House said.

In Beirut, Hamas official Osama Hamdan repeated his group's main demands: an end to the Israeli military offensive, withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the return of all Gazans to the homes they had been forced to flee.

He said any exchange of prisoners cannot take place except after a ceasefire. Israel wants merely a pause in fighting to get hostages out of Gaza and more aid in, and says it will not end the conflict before Hamas is "eliminated".

Palestinian-Israeli violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories often spikes during Ramadan, as does hostility towards Israel in the Arab and Muslim world, creating a strong incentive for leaders to clinch a deal before then.

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