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.

Since the Gaza war broke out in October, Egypt has faced a difficult dilemma, seeking both to show solidarity with the Palestinians and to preserve its relations with neighbouring Israel.

The Rafah crossing point between Egypt and Gaza is in theory the besieged territory's only opening to the world that is not under direct Israeli control.

In practice, Israel retains control over all goods passing through the crossing, including humanitarian aid intended for Gaza, which is suffering dire food shortages that the UN fears will spark "starvation".

Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal set a world record for consecutive victories with their 28th win in a row to reach the Asian Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday.

A 2-0 victory at fellow Saudi side Al Ittihad saw them surpass the previous record of 27 straight wins by a top-flight team, set by Welsh team The New Saints in 2016.

Riyadh-based Hilal, already the most successful team in AFC Champions League history with four titles, went through 4-0 on aggregate in Jeddah.

Turkey, Iran and Morocco are vying for a greater economic and military role in Africa's Sahel after former colonial ruler France's forced withdrawal from the volatile region.

Turkish military equipment and Moroccan and Iranian development and infrastructure projects are tempting for cash-strapped Sahelian military regimes grappling with jihadist violence.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have undergone coups since 2020, against a backdrop of a bloody jihadist insurgency.