A top UN official said Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory, the Associated Press reports.

Cindy McCain, the American director of the UN World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.

“It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to air Sunday. “There is famine – full-blown famine – in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”

She said a ceasefire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes was essential to confronting the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which controls entrance into Gaza and says it is beginning to allow in more food and other humanitarian aid through land crossings.

The panel that serves as the internationally recognised monitor for food crises said earlier this year that northern Gaza was on the brink of famine and likely to experience it this month. The next update will not come before this summer.

Hamas said on Friday it was sending a delegation to Cairo to discuss a deal for a truce and the release of hostages in Gaza, hours after US CIA director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, Reuters reports.

Hamas and CIA officials will meet Egyptian mediators on Saturday, an Egyptian security source said, though it was unclear whether they would meet separately or together.

Hamas said its delegates were travelling to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal for a truce agreement.

“We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils Palestinians’ demands,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.

A US official said they believed there had been some progress in talks but was still waiting to hear more.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Hamas was the only hold up to a Gaza ceasefire as the militants prepared to send a delegation back to Cairo on Saturday for talks.

“We wait to see whether, in effect, they can take yes for an answer on the ceasefire and release of hostages,” Blinken said late Friday.

“The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.”

Ceasefire talks have continued for months without a decisive breakthrough. Israel has said it is determined to eliminate Hamas, while Hamas says it wants a permanent ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Egypt made a renewed push to revive negotiations late last month. Cairo is alarmed by the prospect of an Israeli ground operation against Hamas in Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than one million people have taken shelter near the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian sources say both sides have made some concessions recently, leading to progress in the talks, though Israel has continued to say an operation in Rafah is imminent.

Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis, I’m Clea Skopeliti bringing you the latest news.

Hamas said on Friday it was sending a delegation to Cairo to resume Gaza ceasefire talks, hours after US CIA director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, according to Egyptian sources.

Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas militants, according to US officials familiar with the talks.

A top UN official has said that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries.

More details shortly, but first here is a roundup of other key developments:

• Scores of Democrats in the US House on Friday urged president Joe Biden to consider halting arms sales to Israel if it does not alter the conduct of its war against Hamas. In a letter signed by 86 Democratic members of Congress, lawmakers voiced “serious concerns regarding the Israeli government’s conduct of the war in Gaza as it pertains to the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid,” reports Agence France-Presse. The Democrats are pressuring Biden to make clear to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any impediment to aid delivery to Gaza was “risking its eligibility for further offensive security assistance from the United States”.

• An Israeli incursion in Rafah could result in ‘slaughter’, a UN official said on Friday. “It could be a slaughter of civilians and an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip because it is run primarily out of Rafah,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, at a Geneva press briefing. “Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death.”

• A World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Friday that the agency had a contingency plan prepared in case of an Israeli incursion into Gaza’s Rafah but said it would not be sufficient to prevent a substantial rise in the death toll. “I want to really say that this contingency plan is a Band-Aid,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, at a Geneva press briefing via video link.

• An Israeli man held hostage in Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attack has been confirmed dead, the government said early Friday. Dror Or, 49, was killed and his body was held in Gaza since 7 October, said the Be’eri kibbutz where he had lived.

• International criminal court (ICC) prosecutors warned on Friday against “individuals who threaten to retaliate” against the tribunal or its staff, saying such actions might constitute an “offence against its administration of justice”. The ICC did not say if the comment related to its investigation into possible war crimes by Israel or Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank.

• Since October 2023, more than 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed in Gaza, including at least 22 in the course of their work, said Reporters Without Borders (RSF) which published its annual World Press Freedom Index on Friday, marking World Press Freedom Day 2024. The Maghreb and Middle East regions performed the worst in terms of restrictions on press freedom by government forces, according to the report.

• At least 34,622 Palestinians have been killed and 77,867 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.