Joe Biden urges Hamas to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza before Ramadan. The issue of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement is the subject of discussions in Cairo.
Five months of fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas have plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian crisis. One of its humanitarian convoys, its first to northern Gaza in 15 days, was looted by "a desperate crowd" after being blocked at an Israeli checkpoint inside the Palestinian territory. According to the UN, famine is "almost inevitable" for 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza.