BAGHDAD (Reuters) -A security agency controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said on Wednesday that they had uncovered a plot to assassinate PUK leader Pavel Talabani, sharing a video that purported to show six guards saying they had received an order to kill him.

KYIV (Reuters) -The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Wednesday he was in Riyadh along with security council chief Rustem Umerov ahead of talks later in the week with U.S. administration officials in New York.

Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the talks in Riyadh focused on paths to peace in Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia's participation in this process. Yermak said they met the Saudi defence minister and national security adviser.

(Reuters) -All United Nations Security Council members, except the United States, on Wednesday said the famine in Gaza was a “manmade crisis” and warned that the use of starvation as a weapon of war is banned under international humanitarian law.

In a joint statement, the 14 council members called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, a substantive surge of aid throughout Gaza, and for Israel to immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on aid delivery.

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump was presiding over a policy meeting on the Gaza war on Wednesday with input from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Trump Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, a senior White House official said.

Trump, top White House officials, Blair and Kushner were discussing all aspects of the Gaza issue, including escalating food aid deliveries, the hostage crisis, post-war plans and more, the official told Reuters.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Israel's military has concluded six Hamas members were killed in a strike on Nasser hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip on Monday, acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea told the Security Council on Wednesday.

The Israeli strike killedat least 20 people including journalists who worked for Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other outlets.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel asked a global hunger monitor on Wednesday to retract an assessment that found that Gaza City and surrounding areas are suffering from famine and that it will likely spread, dismissing the report as "deeply flawed".

TheIntegrated Food Security Phase Classification(IPC) system said on Friday that 514,000 people - close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza - are experiencing famine, with the numberdue to riseto 641,000 by the end of September.

By Jana Choukeir

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hundreds of people protested in southern Lebanon on Wednesday against a planned visit by U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack, a day after the envoy stirred anger in the country by publicly scolding Lebanese reporters.

Lebanon's state news agency said Barrack's visit to Tyre and the border town of Khiyam had been cancelled due to the demonstrations. Protesters carried banners reading "Death to America" and waved the flags of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and its Shiite ally, the Amal movement, according to social media footage and witnesses.

The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not cry.

Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine -- declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza -- is not just a dry technical term.

"When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is," said Ashing.

Israel on Wednesday called on UN-backed hunger monitor the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) to immediately retract a report which determined that famine was present in parts of Gaza.

"Israel demands that the IPC will retract immediately its fabricated report and publish a notice," the director general of Israel's foreign ministry, Eden Bar Tal, told a press conference.

He said Israel would share "evidence" of misconduct in preparing the report with IPC's donors if the organisation fails to heed "within a short time".

By John Irish and Parisa Hafezi

PARIS/DUBAI (Reuters) -Britain, France and Germany are likely to begin the process of reimposing U.N. sanctions on Iran on Thursday, but hope Tehran will provide commitments over its nuclear programme within 30 days that will convince them to defer concrete action, four diplomats said.

The trio, known as the E3, met Iran on Tuesday to try to revive diplomacy over the nuclear programme before they lose the ability in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.