A United States special envoy on Wednesday urged Panama to stop Iranian ships from flying its flag, which allows Tehran to evade sanctions imposed by Washington.

The small Central American nation is the world leader in offering flags of convenience, which allow shipping companies to register their vessels in countries to which they have no link -- for a fee and freedom from oversight.

"Iran and actors related to Iran are trying to evade sanctions here in Panama. They're trying to abuse Panama's flag registry," said Abram Paley, US deputy special envoy for Iran.

Most aid bound for war-ravaged Gaza arrives overland from neighbouring Egypt but Israel and UN agencies clash on how much actually makes it inside the Palestinian territory.

The volume of aid entering Gaza by road each day through the Rafah crossing from Egypt is insufficient, aid workers say, blaming rigorous Israeli inspections at least in part.

With no truce in sight to pause the Israel-Hamas war, here is a look at how aid currently reaches Gaza and what alternatives are being weighed to alleviate the crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory.

While the US plan to build a pier off the Gaza coast to increase aid deliveries is a technique tried and tested throughout military history, it presents logistical hurdles that may limit the international community's ability to bring critical supplies to Palestinians.

US President Joe Biden announced the initiative last week as the war has left Gaza's population struggling to survive, especially in the north where Israeli restrictions have hampered overland access.

The Hamas-run government in Gaza said Wednesday that sending an aid ship from Cyprus to the besieged territory was an inadequate response to the needs of its 2.4 million people.

"According to what was announced, the ship's cargo does not exceed that of one or two trucks, and it will take days to arrive," Salama Marouf, spokesman for the government press office, said in a statement.

He said some logistical questions about the operation were unanswered and raised concerns about Israeli inspections.

The main UN aid agency in war-ravaged Gaza said an Israeli strike Wednesday hit one of its warehouses, killing an employee, as calls intensified for land routes to bring food into the besieged territory.

"At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah" in southern Gaza, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in a statement.

Palestinian militant group Hamas said one of its members was killed in an Israeli strike in south Lebanon on Wednesday that state media said killed three people.

Hamas said the man killed in the strike was Hadi Mustafa, a member of its armed wing in Lebanon from the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh, close to the coastal city of Tyre.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it carried out a strike in the Tyre area and described Mustafa as a "significant operative" behind attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

A Spanish aid boat was en route to Gaza on Wednesday, opening a new maritime corridor intended to allow deliveries of desperately needed food to the Palestinian territory ravaged by months of war between Israel and Hamas.

In a sign of worsening humanitarian conditions, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry says 27 people have died of malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.

The number of children worldwide who died before age five reached a record low in 2022, the United Nations said in a report published Tuesday, as for the first time fewer than five million died.

According to the estimate, 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2022, a 51 percent decrease since 2000 and a 62 percent drop since 1990, according to the report, which still warned such progress is "precarious" and unequal.

Life-saving food aid in Chad for hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-torn Sudan will grind to a halt in April without international funding, a United Nations agency warned Tuesday.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing for $242 million in donations to continue supporting 1.2 million Sudanese refugees, as the approaching rainy season threatens to cut off road access for humanitarian deliveries in eastern Chad.

"We are in a race against time," WFP’s Chad director Pierre Honnorat said in a statement.

Chinese and Russian warships have entered Iranian territorial waters for a joint naval exercise with Iran, state media reported Tuesday.

This year's manoeuvres come with Middle East tensions soaring in the face of the Israel-Hamas war that has drawn in Iranian allies around the region, including Yemen's Huthi rebels who have launched a campaign of attacks on commercial shipping in Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, drawing Western reprisals.