US and Israeli Officials Discuss Tensions at the Israel-Lebanon Border

 This picture taken from a position in northern Israel bordering Lebanon shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of a southern Lebanese area on September 4, 2024. (AFP)
This picture taken from a position in northern Israel bordering Lebanon shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of a southern Lebanese area on September 4, 2024. (AFP)
TT

US and Israeli Officials Discuss Tensions at the Israel-Lebanon Border

 This picture taken from a position in northern Israel bordering Lebanon shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of a southern Lebanese area on September 4, 2024. (AFP)
This picture taken from a position in northern Israel bordering Lebanon shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of a southern Lebanese area on September 4, 2024. (AFP)

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer held a virtual meeting Wednesday to discuss the ongoing tensions at the Israel-Lebanon border, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said that senior White House national security officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein also took part in the discussions about concerns that the tensions with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah could cause the war in Gaza to spread into a regional conflict.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said White House officials on Wednesday continued conversations with Israeli officials in hopes of sealing a cease-fire deal.
US officials also spoke with Egyptian and Qatari officials, who have served as intermediaries for Hamas. But Kirby declined to confirm that Sullivan and other senior White House officials spoke with Dermer on Wednesday.



Palestinian Minister Reports 29 Starvation-related Deaths among Gazan Children, Elderly

Displaced Palestinians snatch bread loaves distributed by a charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on May 5, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Displaced Palestinians snatch bread loaves distributed by a charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on May 5, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
TT

Palestinian Minister Reports 29 Starvation-related Deaths among Gazan Children, Elderly

Displaced Palestinians snatch bread loaves distributed by a charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on May 5, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Displaced Palestinians snatch bread loaves distributed by a charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on May 5, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

The Palestinian health minister said on Thursday that 29 children and elderly people had died from starvation-related deaths in Gaza in recent days and that many thousands more were at risk.

"In the last couple of days we lost 29 children," Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan told reporters, describing them as "starvation-related deaths".

He later clarified that the total included elderly people as well as children, Reuters reported.

Asked to react to earlier comments by the UN aid chief to the BBC that 14,000 babies could die without aid, he said: "The number 14,000 is very realistic may be even underestimating (the scale)."