Israel has accepted a US proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza under conditions that the Hamas group has yet to approve, the National Security Council reported this Saturday during a telephone meeting with journalists.
According to NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo, officials said the Israelis have accepted the framework agreement, if Hamas agrees to release the hostages classified as "vulnerable," saying: "There is a framework agreement. The Israelis have more or less accepted. And there will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today if Hamas agrees to release the category defined as vulnerable hostages that has been under negotiation for some time."
Hundreds of thousands of people are fighting for survival in northern Gaza after almost five months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. military planes began the first airdrops of thousands of meals to Gaza, and the armies of Jordan and Egypt said they were also making airdrops.
The European External Action Service said responsibility for the crisis lay with "restrictions imposed by the Israeli army and obstructions by violent extremists to the delivery of humanitarian aid."
[USA. makes first airdrop of humanitarian food aid for Gaza]
Residents of northern Gaza say they have begun searching through piles of rubble and garbage for anything they can feed their children, who barely eat once a day.
Many families have started mixing animal and bird food with grains to make bread.
International aid officials say they have seen catastrophic hunger.
"We are starving," Soad Abu Hussein, a widow and mother of five who has taken refuge in a school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
According to Gaza hospital records, at least 10 children have died of starvation, according to the World Health Organization.
Northern Gaza has borne the brunt of the conflict that began when the Hamas militant group launched an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.