<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>The United Nations humanitarian aid agency says hundreds of thousands of people would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel carries out a military assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The city has become critical for humanitarian aid and is highly concentrated with displaced Palestinians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Leaders internationally have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be cautious about any incursion into Rafah, where seven people — mostly children — were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any US response to such an incursion would be up to President Joe Biden, but that currently, “conditions are not favorable to any kind of operation.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkiye’s trade minister said Friday that its new trade ban on Israel was in response to “the deterioration and aggravation of the situation in Rafah.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Israel-Hamas war has driven around 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and the territory’s entire population has been driven into a humanitarian catastrophe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dozens of people demonstrated Thursday night outside Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv, demanding a deal to release the hostages. Meanwhile, Hamas said it would send a delegation to Cairo as soon as possible to keep working on ceasefire talks. A leaked truce proposal hints at compromises by both sides after months of talks languishing in a stalemate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Across the US, tent encampments and demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war have spread across university campuses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than 2,000 protesters have been arrested over the past two weeks as students rally against the war’s death toll and call for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza. According to Reuters reports</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd/fas</div>