World
Aid is surging into Gaza under the ceasefire. Is it helping?
JERUSALEM (AP) — Two weeks after the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect, aid is flooding into the Gaza Strip, bringing relief to a territory suffering from hunger, mass displacement and devastation following 15 months of war.
But Palestinians and aid workers say it’s still an uphill battle to ensure the assistance reaches everyone. And looming large is the possibility that fighting will resume if the ceasefire breaks down after the six-week first phase.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel said it would allow 600 aid trucks into Gaza each day, a major increase. Israel estimates that at least 4,200 trucks have entered each week since the ceasefire took hold.
Humanitarian groups say aid distribution is complicated by destroyed or damaged roads, Israeli inspections and the threat of unexploded bombs.
On Saturday, Samir Abu Holi, 68, watched over a food-distribution point in Jabaliya, an area in northern Gaza razed to the ground during multiple Israeli offensives, the most recent of which cut off nearly all aid for over a month.
“I have more than 10 children. All of them need milk and food. Before the ceasefire, we used to provide food with difficulty,” he said. “Today there is a little relief.”
Here’s a closer look at the aid situation.
A surge of aid
The main U.N. food agency, the World Food Program, said it dispersed more food to Palestinians in Gaza during the first four days of the ceasefire than it did, on average, during any month of the war. Over 32,000 metric tons of aid have entered Gaza since the ceasefire, the agency said last week.
Aid is now entering through two crossings in the north and one in the south. Aid agencies said they are opening bakeries and handing out high-energy biscuits, and Hamas police have returned to the streets to help restore order.
Before the ceasefire, aid organizations said delivery was complicated by armed gangs looting the trucks, attacks on aid workers, arduous Israeli inspections and difficulties coordinating with COGAT, the Israeli military body charged with facilitating aid. Israel blamed the U.N. and humanitarian organizations for failing to deliver aid once it reached Gaza.
There’s now the “political will to make everything else work,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians’ right to move freely within Gaza.
“COGAT is fast-tracking responses to coordination requests. It’s allowing two crossings instead of one to operate in the north. The ceasefire is allowing Hamas forces to operate freely to stop looting … and the lack of hostilities allow aid agencies to move freely and safely,” Hary said.
Food prices are still a challenge
Nadine Jomaa, a young woman in Bureij in central Gaza, said the aid is not freely available, and she needs to buy goods in the market, where they are resold for inflated prices. Though prices are coming down, flour and cooking gas still cost roughly triple the amount they did before the war, according to the World Food Program.
Her family is eating only cheap canned goods. “We need more food, water, household items for the kitchen and bathroom and women’s items,” she said.
Although humanitarian officials have long said the best way to prevent extortion is to flood Gaza with aid, Palestinians in the north say that, so far, the influx appears to have only boosted shadowy middlemen. Residents complain that there are not nearly enough tents entering Gaza while non-essential items such as chocolate, nuts and soda are suddenly ubiquitous.
Ahmed Qamar, 34, who returned to live in the ruins of his former home in Jabaliya, said his area has seen just a few dozen aid trucks.
“Hundreds of families here are sleeping in the open and in the cold,” he said. “We need electricity and shelter, and meanwhile markets are flooded with chocolate and cigarettes.”
Though aid workers say the Israeli inspection process has accelerated, getting certain types of aid into Gaza is still challenging. Some items are deemed “dual-use,” barring them from Gaza because of concerns they could be diverted by militants for military purposes.
Some hospitals and desalination plants still have fuel shortages. And Hamas on Sunday accused Israeli officials of obstructing the delivery of medical supplies and reconstruction machinery.
According to a list circulated to humanitarian groups by COGAT and shared with The Associated Press, desalination and water-collection devices, storage units, tools, tent kits, ovens, water-resistant clothing and equipment for shelter construction teams all require “pre-approval” before entering Gaza. Large tents, sleeping bags, portable toilets, heating pads and vaccines are cleared to enter the strip without Israeli approval.
“While aid is getting in in higher numbers, we also know that those restrictions on essential items are persisting,” said Sophie Driscoll, head of communications for the International Rescue Committee in the Palestinian territories.
COGAT acknowledged keeping certain items on the dual-use list but said it is still permitting them into Gaza after screening. The agency said tents are not considered dual-use, and Israel has allowed tens of thousands into Gaza in recent weeks “without restriction.” It also said Israel has extended the hours crossings are open and allowed road repairs inside Gaza.
“Regarding the distribution of aid inside Gaza, Israel does not control the situation inside,” COGAT said.
Destroyed roads, unexploded ordnance
Roads have been heavily damaged by the war, and unexploded bombs litter the landscape. The U.N. estimates that 5% to 10% of all ammunition dropped in Gaza has failed to detonate, making the territory potentially perilous for civilians and aid workers.
UNMAS, the U.N. agency handling unexploded ordnance, said that since the ceasefire took hold, humanitarian convoys and civilians have reported finding large aircraft bombs, mortars and rifle grenades.
As they return home, many Palestinians are living in areas where the water network has been destroyed. That makes dehydration and the spread of disease due to poor sanitary conditions and limited medical care a threat.
Speaking from southern Gaza, Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications at UNICEF, recalled being on a road where “thousands and thousands of children and families were walking.”
“I was seeing them with nothing,” he said, “only the clothes they’re wearing on their back.”

World
Vote counting is underway in high-stakes state election in the New Delhi region
NEW DELHI (AP) — Vote counting started early Saturday in the high-stakes state legislature election in India’s federal territory, including New Delhi, with TV exit polls predicting a win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party.
Over 60% of more than 15 million eligible people voted to elect the local government on Wednesday.
Volunteers of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) check the results on mobile outside their party office as votes are being counted in the Delhi state election in New Delhi,India, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was projected to win a majority in the 70-member assembly of India’s capital against the Aam Aadmi Party, or AAP, led by Arvind Kejriwal, which runs New Delhi and has built widespread support with its welfare policies and anti-corruption movement.
The early counting trends indicated that the BJP was ahead of the AAP in over 40 seats. Modi’s party hasn’t won the territory that includes India’s capital of 20 million people in over a quarter-century.
Exit polls, however, have a patchy record in India owing to diverse voting population.
The BJP failed to secure a majority on its own in last year’s national election but formed the government with coalition partners. It has gained some lost ground by winning two state elections in northern Haryana and western Maharashtra states.
Ahead of this election, both Modi and Kejriwal offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity, along with a monthly stipend of over 2,000 rupees ($25) to poor women.
Modi’s party has hoped to benefit after the recent federal budget slashed income taxes on the salaried middle class, one of its key voting blocs.
The AAP won 62 out of 70 seats in a landslide victory in the last state legislature election in 2020. leaving the BJP with eight and the Congress party with none.
The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 by the Congress party, which ran the government for 15 years.
World
President Trump says 'we will have relations with North Korea'; it's a 'big asset' that he gets along with Kim

President Donald Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House Friday and said the U.S. will have relations with the North Korean regime of dictator Kim Jong Un.
“We will have relations with North Korea, with Kim Jong Un. I get along with them very well,” Trump told reporters alongside Ishiba.
Trump, who first met Kim in 2018 in Singapore and became the first sitting president to meet with the leader of North Korea, is looking to build off his personal diplomacy he established with Kim during his first term.
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President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Japan’s Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, at the White House Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“We had a good relationship. And I think it’s a very big asset for everybody that I do get along with them,” the president said.
Trump met Kim again in 2019 and became the first president to step foot inside North Korean territory from the demilitarized zone.
Trump said Japan would welcome renewed dialogue with North Korea because relations between Japan and North Korea remain tense since diplomatic relations have never been established.
“And I can tell you that Japan likes the idea because their relationship is not very good with him,” Trump said.
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President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June 2018 during his first term as president. (AP/Evan Vucci)
Ishiba said it’s a positive development Trump and Kim met during Trump’s first term. And now that he has returned to power, the U.S., Japan and its allies can move toward resolving issues with North Korea, including denuclearization.
“Japan and U.S. will work together toward the complete denuclearization of North Korea,” Ishiba added.
Prime Minister Ishiba also addressed a grievance involving the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Although North Korea released some of the prisoners in the early 2000s, Pyongyang never provided Japan with any explanation for the abduction of its citizens, and there can be no normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea until the issue is resolved.
“And so our time is limited,” Ishiba warned.
“So, I don’t know if the president of the United States, if President Trump is able to resolve this issue. We do understand that it’s a Japan issue, first and foremost. Having said that, we would love to continue to cooperate with them,” the prime minister added.
World
Cyprus jails Syrian man over death of young girl on migrant boat

The number of migrants arriving Cyprus has fallen massively over the past three years after tough measures from the government.
A Syrian man has been jailed for three years by a Cyprus court for causing the death by negligence of a 3-year-old girl who died of dehydration aboard an overloaded migrant boat.
The Famagusta criminal court ruled that the 48-year-old captain had failed to ensure the safety of the 60 Syrian migrants in January last year during a journey on the small wooden craft, which carried no navigational aids or appropriate communications equipment.
The captain had told the passengers at some point in the journey to throw any remaining bottles of water overboard in a bid to remove any indications that the boat had departed from Lebanon, the Attorney-General’s Office in Cyprus said on Friday.
The boat set sail on 18 January 2024, but an engine failure left the vessel adrift for nearly a week in the eastern Mediterranean, where many of the passengers began to drink sea water and their own urine to quench their thirst, according to the facts of the case.
After locating the boat, Cypriot authorities airlifted the 3-year-old girl, who was accompanied by her mother, to a hospital, but medical staff could not save her life.
The authorities did not name the perpetrator or the victim.
The number of migrants arriving in Cyprus has fallen massively over the past three years after tough measures from the government. Authorities said the EU member nation’s ability to host many thousands of new asylum seekers was being overwhelmed.
Migrant arrivals to ethnically divided Cyprus — mostly through the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north, where government authorities cannot exercise jurisdiction — dropped from 17,278 in 2022 to 6,102 in 2024, according to the latest available government data.
Meanwhile, asylum applications plummeted from a record 21,565 to 6,769 over the same period while repatriations increased to nearly 11,000 from 7,700.
Following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December, Cyprus’ Deputy Migration Minister Nicholas Ioannides said about 40 Syrian nationals on average each day are requesting to either withdraw their asylum application or to revoke their international protection status.
Ioannides said this week that some 755 Syrians have already returned to their homeland.
Cyprus lies closer to the Middle East than any other EU state, and thousands of Syrians have fled to the island in recent years, which last year caused the government to halt the processing of asylum applications altogether.
Last October, Europe’s top human rights court ruled that Cyprus breached the right of two Syrian nationals to seek asylum after keeping them, and more than two dozen other people, aboard a boat at sea for two days before sending them back to Lebanon.
Additional sources • AP
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