Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service.

Coming to you live from London, I'm James Kamara Sabi.

And coming up later in the program, a question for the convicted sex offender, Gilane Maxwell.

Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?

Absolutely never. In any context.

As the US Justice Department releases the audio and transcript of an interview that she gave about her former associate, Jeffrey Epstein,

will consider the impact of

her words on her hopes of a presidential pardon and on the political difficulties for the

president who is reportedly mulling one. We begin, though, in Gaza a day after the UN-backed

panel of food security experts, the IPC, which monitors hunger around the world, concluded

that over half a million people in Gaza City, that's more than a quarter of all Palestinians

living in Gaza, are facing starvation, destitution and death. That first official confirmation

of a famine in the Middle East came as Israel has maintained its military campaign in Gaza

and has continued to edge closer to a large-scale assault on Gaza City.

Designed, it says, to deal a final blow to Hamas and to secure the release of the remaining

hostages who were abducted during the attacks of October the 7th, 2023.

Dr Hamis Ellesi is working at Wafa Hospital in Gaza City.

It's one of four remaining medical facilities in a city currently housing more than a million people.

We've seen so many patients coming to our hospitals seeking help.

When they come, they're barely able to walk or can because they are starved.

Besides being injured, they are starved or under poor hunger. And patients cannot even walk

and have to be accended by another person who is also hungry. The White House is yet to give an official response to the IPC report,

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