Top US diplomat Antony Blinken has urged Hamas to accept a Gaza truce plan despite an Israeli warning that the army will keep fighting the Palestinian militant group after any ceasefire.

Mediators have proposed a truce deal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange dozens of hostages for many more Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has said it will respond "within a very short period" to the proposal.

"Hamas needs to say yes and needs to get this done," Blinken said Wednesday while in Israel on his seventh Middle East crisis tour since the war broke out in October.

In the heart of sun-soaked Morocco, scientists are cultivating a future where tough crops defy a relentless drought, now in its sixth year.

"Look at these beautiful ears of wheat," said Wuletaw Tadesse Degu, the head of wheat breeding at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA).

"The difference in quality between our field and others is striking," he said, pointing towards a lush expanse in Marchouch, south of Rabat, that stood in stark contrast with the barren lands elsewhere.

What does Joe Biden have to say about the rowdy student protests against Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza that have rocked American college campuses in recent weeks? Almost nothing.

The US president has so far avoided the contentious subject as it is likely to complicate his reelection campaign.

President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday Colombia will sever diplomatic ties with Israel, whose government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he described as "genocidal" in its war in Gaza.

"Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with the state of Israel will be severed... for having a government, for having a president that is genocidal," Petro, a harsh critic of the devastating war against Hamas, told a May Day rally in Bogota.

Netanyahu is Israel's head of government, while the country's president -- a role which is largely ceremonial -- is Isaac Herzog.

After applying months of pressure on Israel to do more on aid, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a first-hand look Wednesday at trucks on the Gaza border.

Under tight security including armoured cars, Blinken made his first stop to near areas targeted in Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.

A Saudi court's decision to sentence fitness influencer Manahel al-Otaibi to 11 years in prison highlights what activists describe as a fierce crackdown on even vaguely critical online speech.

In the past two years the Saudi judiciary has "convicted and handed down lengthy prison terms on dozens of individuals for their expression on social media", the human rights groups Amnesty International and ALQST said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The Gaza Strip is filled with more war debris and rubble than Ukraine, the head of UN demining operations for the narrow Palestinian territory said Wednesday.

And the danger for clearance work is restricted not just to unexploded ordnance but includes possible exposure to toxic substances such as asbestos.

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated the amount of debris in Gaza at 37 million tonnes in mid-April, or 300 kilogrammes per square metre.

US top diplomat Antony Blinken urged Hamas on Wednesday to accept a Gaza truce plan despite an Israeli warning that the army will keep fighting the Palestinian militant group after any ceasefire.

"There is a very strong proposal on the table right now," said Blinken, in Israel on his seventh Middle East crisis tour since the war broke out in October. "Hamas needs to say yes and needs to get this done."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Wednesday on Hamas to accept a "very strong" ceasefire-for-hostages offer as he vowed to put a priority on families seeking to reunite with loved ones.

In rare scenes for the top US diplomat, who has faced furore at home and abroad over President Joe Biden's support for Israel in its campaign against Hamas, Blinken was greeted outside his Tel Aviv hotel by Israelis waving US flags and chanting, "Thank you, Biden! Thank you, Blinken!"

An esteemed economist, Minouche Shafik was thrilled to become president of one of America's most prestigious colleges.

But her name will now be tied with dramatic images of New York police arresting pro-Palestinian students at the Columbia University campus.

Less than a year after taking up the role, 61-year-old Shafik finds herself at the heart of a storm over her handling of the protests that spread to other colleges in the United States.