The crowd flocked to the aid distribution point early Thursday, desperate for food amid Gaza's looming famine, only to be met with lethal chaos including live fire by Israeli troops.

By mid-afternoon more than 100 people were reported dead in the grisly incident which underscored worsening shortages in the besieged Palestinian territory.

All told, Thursday's "massacre" at Gaza City's Nabulsi roundabout killed 104 people and wounded 760, said Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry.

US President Joe Biden said Thursday that a deadly incident at a food aid point in Gaza would complicate ceasefire negotiations, but also underscored the urgency for a deal between Israel and Hamas.

Biden added that a ceasefire was unlikely to happen by Monday as he previously believed, but stressed he was still hopeful for a deal that would provide a six-week pause in fighting in exchange for the release of hostages held by the Palestinian militant group.

Iranian authorities have prevented jailed Iranian Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi from attending the burial ceremony of her father who died earlier this week, her family said Thursday.

Karim Mohammadi, who had not seen his daughter for almost two years, died on Tuesday aged 90. He was buried earlier Thursday in the city of Zanjan northwest of Tehran.

"Heartbreakingly, Narges Mohammadi was denied the opportunity to attend the ceremony and bid her final farewell to her father," her family said in a statement.

World trade ministers were locked in disagreement on fisheries subsidies, agriculture and digital customs duties as a major WTO conference was extended beyond its scheduled deadline and into Friday.

With no signs of a breakthrough on Thursday at the World Trade Organization's 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, officials pushed back the formal closing session to 2:00 pm (1000 GMT) the following day.

"These negotiations are a bit like a roller coaster," said a source close to the talks.

In the green hills of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near Lebanon, Arye and Ditza Alon are hiking through a tranquil nature reserve, wondering whether the wider region could become a war zone.

While mediators hope for a truce soon in the Israel-Hamas war raging in Gaza to the south, fears are growing that months of cross-border clashes in the north could escalate into a bigger conflict.

"It's a big question," said Ditza, pondering whether Israel should fight another major war against Lebanon's armed movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.

Israel's planned ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would contravene the orders issued by the United Nations' highest court, the UN human rights chief said on Thursday.

On January 26, the International Court of Justice in The Hague -- while stopping short of ordering an immediate halt to the war in Gaza -- said Israel must "prevent the commission of all acts within the scope" of the Genocide Convention.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has called for members of the ultra-Orthodox community to be required to perform military service like other Israeli Jews as the Gaza war rages on.

"We must all bear the burden," Gallant said, addressing what has long been a divisive political issue in a country with mandatory military service for most citizens.

Since Israel was founded in 1948, Jewish men who study the Torah full-time in a seminary are granted an annual deferment from military service until the age of 26, at which point they become exempt.

Democracy faced sharp, widespread setbacks worldwide in 2023 with violence and manipulation marring a series of elections, Freedom House said Thursday.

In its annual report, the US-funded pro-democracy advocacy and research group switched classifications for two countries, downgrading Ecuador from free to partly free and upgrading Thailand from not free to partly free.

Israel has "more or less accepted" a proposal for a six-week ceasefire in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a US official said Saturday as Palestinian negotiators were expected in Cairo.

Mediators have been scrambling to lock in a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which begins on March 10 or 11, eyeing an end to the almost five-month conflict that has ravaged Hamas-ruled Gaza.

In a sign of the dire humanitarian conditions as violence rages on, the besieged territory's health ministry reported more than a dozen child malnutrition deaths in recent days.

The United States on Wednesday urged Israel to allow Muslims to worship at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem during Ramadan, after a far-right minister proposed barring Palestinians from the occupied West Bank from praying there.

"As it pertains to Al-Aqsa, we continue to urge Israel to facilitate access to Temple Mount for peaceful worshippers during Ramadan consistent with past practice," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters, using the Jewish term for the site, the holiest in Judaism.