With the global attention fixated on the diplomatic efforts to end the war on Iran, Israel has systematically escalated its attacks on Gaza and choked off vital aid, plunging the besieged enclave into what economic experts are now calling an “engineered, compounded famine.” 
  
The number of aid trucks entering Gaza has dropped drastically in violation of the October 2025 ceasefire with Hamas. Since then, the Government Media Office in Gaza has recorded 2,400 military violations by Israeli forces, resulting in the killing of more than 700 Palestinians. 

Israeli and Lebanese officials have held their first direct negotiations since 1983, as Israel continues its deadly military campaign against Hezbollah. 
  
Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Lebanon has tested the fragile ceasefire struck on April 8, which paused the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran for two weeks. 
   
At Tuesday’s meeting, the two sides entered with sharply different priorities. Israel ruled out discussing a ceasefire with Lebanon and instead pressed Beirut to disarm Hezbollah. 
  

Nearly 700 civilians have been killed in drone strikes in Sudan since the beginning of 2026, the United Nations has reported, while NGOs worry that the effects of the war in Iran are complicating efforts to help millions in need of humanitarian aid. 
  
The increasing use of drones in the conflict was noted by the UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher in a statement issued on Tuesday. It comes as the country prepares to mark the third anniversary of the brutal conflict between the army and paramilitaries. 
 

The UN has expressed concern over violence in the strategic town of Akobo in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, which was retaken by opposition forces after they ousted government troops. 
  
Fighting started over the weekend and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition spokesman Lam Paul Gabriel said on Monday that opposition fighters captured the town and took military vehicles and weapons. Government troops, which seized the town in March, withdrew. 
  

Hungary's premier-elect Péter Magyar, who defeated Prime Minister Viktor Orban in weekend elections, vowed on Monday, April 13, to usher in "a new era." He urged President Tamas Sulyok, an Orban ally, to convene parliament "as soon as possible." 
 

A French court on Monday ruled that cement conglomerate Lafarge was guilty of paying the Islamic State (IS) group and other jihadists protection money to maintain its business in war-torn Syria. 
  
The company's former CEO Bruno Lafont was sentenced to six years in prison for financing "terrorism,” which a judge ordered him to start serving immediately, while former deputy managing director Christian Herrault received a five-year sentence. 
 

Ukraine's military command accused Russia of repeatedly violating a truce to mark the Orthodox Easter Saturday, April 11, with nearly 470 incidents ranging from air strikes and drone attacks to shelling. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the ceasefire on Thursday, more than a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky first made the proposal. Both sides had agreed to observe it. 
 

Haiti is facing “one of the most severe and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crises in the Western Hemisphere,” a senior UN aid official warned on Friday, underscoring the need for continued global attention to alleviate suffering there. 
 
Edem Wosurnu of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefed journalists on her recent mission to the Caribbean island nation where violent armed gangs remain in control of large areas of the territory.  
  

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has announced a 32-hour ceasefire for Orthodox Easter, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirming that Ukraine will honor it. 
  
The Kremlin said on Thursday that the pause in fighting will begin at 4 pm Moscow time on Saturday and run until midnight on Sunday, covering Easter celebrations observed in both countries. 
 
Hours after the announcement, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region said Russian artillery and aerial attacks had killed two people.