Israel asked for an extension Wednesday before presenting to the country's top court measures to increase aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, where hunger is spreading after more than six months of war.
Five non-profit groups have taken the state to court, accusing authorities of restricting the entry of relief items and failing to respect their "obligations as an occupying power" to provide basic necessities to Gazans.
US President Joe Biden said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Gaza policy was a "mistake" and urged Israel to call for a ceasefire, in an interview aired Tuesday.
Biden's comments were some of his strongest criticism yet of Netanyahu amid growing tensions over the civilian death toll from Israel's war on Hamas and dire conditions inside Gaza.
"I think what he's doing is a mistake. I don't agree with his approach," Biden told Univision, a US Spanish-language TV network, when asked about Netanyahu's handling of the war.
The international community has lost its "moral compass" on war-ravaged Gaza, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said Tuesday.
"For me, of great concern is that we have lost our moral compass on Gaza, as a humanity, as the international community," Mohammed told a news conference.
"We need to do something about that fast -- we're late," she added. "There are thousands of children that continue to lose their lives, that live amputated. There are hundreds that we are waiting to come home, hostages."
Palestinian nurse Maha Sweylem came to the gutted shell of the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza hoping yet dreading for news of her husband, whom she said was a doctor there.
World Health Organization teams arrived at what was Gaza's biggest hospital Monday to help identify the bodies that litter the ruins.
The Israeli military said it battled with Palestinian militants there during two weeks of fierce fighting last month, with the WHO saying that patients were trapped inside.
Lebanon's interior minister vowed Tuesday to get tough on Syrians after several were arrested on suspicion of involvement in killing a political official, in a case that triggered uproar.
Anti-Syrian sentiment has soared following the Sunday disappearance and death of Pascal Sleiman, a coordinator in the Byblos (Jbeil) area north of Beirut for the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party opposed to the Syrian government and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Sleiman was killed in what the Lebanese army said was a carjacking by Syrian gang members, who took his body to Syria.
Israel is blocking far more convoys carrying food aid within Gaza, where famine is looming, than convoys carrying other kinds of aid, the UN said Tuesday.
A spokesman for the United Nations' humanitarian agency pointed to statistics from March showing that it was much more difficult to get clearance for delivering food than other aid in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Washington has given Ukraine small arms and ammunition that were seized while being sent from Iranian forces to Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, the US military said Tuesday.
The transfer last week came as Ukraine suffers from significant shortages of ammunition and US Republican lawmakers block new aid funding, but it does not address Kyiv's need for key items such as artillery and air defense munitions.
Israel bombed targets in Gaza on Tuesday as mediators in Cairo sought progress towards a truce and hostage deal and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israeli troops would launch a ground invasion of Rafah.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had no indication of an "imminent" Israeli assault on the city, the last in the Gaza Strip yet to be the target of a ground invasion and where around 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
Lebanese security forces have arrested seven Syrians on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a local politician, a judicial official said Tuesday, amid a backlash against Syrian refugees.
Pascal Sleiman was the coordinator in the Byblos (Jbeil) area, north of Beirut, for the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian party which opposes the Syrian government and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
The LF said it would consider Sleiman's murder a "political assassination until proven otherwise", although the army said the politician had been killed for his car.
Turkey said it would impose trade restrictions on Israel starting Tuesday over the war in Gaza, covering a range of products including cement and steel and iron construction materials.
The new measures come a day after Turkey said Israel had blocked its attempt to airdrop aid to Gaza.
"This decision will remain in place until Israel declares a ceasefire immediately and allows adequate and uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza," the trade ministry announced on social media.
It attached a list of 54 products subject to export restrictions.
