AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip said Tuesday that chronic food shortages are affecting their ability to cover Israel's conflict with Hamas militants.

Palestinian text, photo and video journalists working for the international news agency said desperate hunger and lack of clean water is making them ill and exhausted.

Some have even had to cut back on their coverage of the war, now in its 22nd month, with one journalist saying "we have no energy left due to hunger".

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -The Norwegian Refugee Council told Reuters on Tuesday its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza, with some of its staff now starving, and accused Israel of paralysing its work.

"Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council told Reuters in an interview via video link from Oslo.

By Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on what it said was a Houthi-linked petroleum smuggling and sanctions evasion network across Yemen and the United Arab Emirates in fresh action targeting the Iran-backed militant group.

The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said the two individuals and five entities sanctioned on Tuesday were among the most significant importers of petroleum products and money launderers that benefit the Houthis.

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey will directly intervene to stop any attempt to fragment Syria and will prevent any attempts by militants to obtain autonomy after clashes in southern Syria, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Tuesday.

His warning against fragmentation, in comments to reporters in Ankara, appeared aimed at Israel as Turkey considers this to be Israel's ultimate aim in Syria.

France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati is to go on trial accused of corruption and abuse of power while she was a member of European Parliament, a judicial source told AFP Tuesday.

Dati, a 59-year-old who holds ambitions to become Paris mayor next year, was charged in 2019 on suspicions she lobbied for the Renault-Nissan carmaking group while at the European Union institution. She denies the allegations.

By Charlotte Greenfield

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Jerusalem's Latin Patriarch, said on Tuesday he and church leaders had returned from a visit to Gaza with "broken hearts", calling the spiralling humanitarian crisis there "morally unacceptable".

Pizzaballa and Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, on Friday visited the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza City, where an Israeli strike last week killed three people and injured several more including the parish priest.

A severe heatwave sweeping Iran has disrupted water and electricity supplies in much of the country, with reservoir levels falling to their lowest in a century, state media said Tuesday.

Extreme temperatures, which began on Friday, are expected to ease gradually by Thursday, according to meteorological authorities cited by state television.

Government offices in at least 15 of Iran's 31 provinces, including the capital Tehran, have been ordered to close on Wednesday in a bid to conserve water and electricity.

By Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is under pressure to take a firmer stance towards Israel, with members of his own coalition calling for Berlin to join a statement by dozens of Western nations condemning the "inhumane killing" of Palestinians.

Merz, who leads Germany's centre-right CDU, has been increasingly critical of Israel. But Germany was notably absent from the joint statement issued on Monday by the EU and 28 Western countries including Britain and France, which called on Israel to immediately end the war.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that he will meet his Chinese counterpart next week and discuss what is likely to be an extension of an August 12 deadline for higher tariffs.

Bessent told Fox Business that trade with China was in "a very good place" and the meetings in Stockholm would take place next Monday and Tuesday.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -A six-week-old infant and three other children have died of starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours,local health officials said, with malnutrition and starvation now killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war.

The infant died at a hospital ward in northern Gaza, the health officials said, naming him as Yousef al-Safadi. The teenager, 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The other two were not named.