Israel and Hamas mediators 'to meet in Cairo to discuss lasting ceasefire in Gaza' after foreign governments resorted to airdrops to aid desperate civilians facing famine

Mediators are primed to reconvene in Cairo today to try and broker a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

Negotiators from regional powers have been working around the clock to secure a Gaza truce by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on March 10.

Delegations from Israel and Hamas are expected to arrive in Cairo on Sunday, two Egyptian security sources said.

However, another source briefed on the talks said Israel would not send a delegation until it got a full list of hostages who are still alive.

An administration official said: 'It will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages, the sick, the wounded, elderly and women.'

As the war rages on, experts and insiders warn the conflict is dragging civilians in Gaza into a horrifying humanitarian catastrophe. 

Hamas militants took about 250 hostages during their unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 whom Israel says are presumed dead.

It was unclear how many of the remaining hostages are deemed vulnerable.

The United States hopes any truce would create space for a more enduring peace.

Hopes for the first pause in fighting since November rose last week after a previous round of talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt in Doha and indications from U.S. President Joe Biden that agreement was close.

A senior U.S. official said on Saturday that the framework for a six-week pause in fighting was in place, with Israel's agreement, and now depended on Hamas agreeing to release hostages.

'The path to a ceasefire right now literally at this hour is straightforward. And there's a deal on the table,' the official told reporters, 'There's a framework deal.

'The Israelis have more or less accepted it. The onus right now is on Hamas.'

Mr Biden and other world leaders are under growing pressure to ease the increasingly desperate plight of Palestinians after five months of war and Israeli blockade of Gaza. The United Nations says a quarter of the population - 576,000 people - is one step from famine.

Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces killed 118 people trying to reach a relief convoy near Gaza City on Thursday, prompting global outrage over the humanitarian catastrophe.

Israel disputes the health ministry's death toll in the food convoy catastrophe and said most victims were trampled or run over. 

A day later, Mr Biden announced plans for the U.S. airdrop on Saturday, which also involved Jordanian forces.

Other countries including Jordan and France had already conducted airdrops of aid into Gaza.

The U.S. has for months been calling for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, something Israel has resisted. Some experts said being forced to resort to costly, inefficient airdrops was the latest demonstration of Washington's limited influence over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

The U.S. military aircraft released 38,000 meals over Gaza, falling far short of the assistance needed by the territory's 2.2 million people. U.S. authorities said it was the first of what would be a sustained effort.

While Israel denies restricting humanitarian aid for Gaza civilians, no humanitarian group has been able to provide aid since January 23, the World Food Programme has warned.

'If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,' WFP's deputy executive director Carl Skau told the UN Security Council today, while his colleague from the UN humanitarian office OCHA, Ramesh Rajasingham, warned of 'almost inevitable' widespread starvation.

At the end of last month, Rajasingham said 'at least 576,000 people in Gaza - one-quarter of the population' were 'one step away from famine, with one in six children under two years of age in northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting'.

Israel launched the offensive in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas terrorists.

The assault has devastated Gaza. Much of the Hamas-run enclave has been laid to waste and more than 30,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands more injured, according to Gaza health authorities.

Fighting raged in the early hours of Sunday, as residents reported the sound of heavy shelling and tanks advancing around Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Around Rafah, another southern city where more than 1 million Palestinian have been seeking refuge on the border with Egypt, authorities said 25 people were killed on Saturday and into Sunday morning. They included 11 who died when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent near a hospital and another 14 in one family, who died when a strike hit a house.

Hamas has not backed away from its position that a temporary truce must be the start of a process towards ending the war altogether, the Egyptian sources and a Hamas official said.

However, the Egyptian sources said assurances had been offered to Hamas that the terms of a permanent ceasefire would be worked out in second and third phases of the deal. The duration of the initial pause of about six weeks had been agreed upon, the sources said.

Hamas and Israel did not respond to requests for comment.