Nearly 80 aid trucks traveling through southern and central Gaza were looted by desperate civilians on Saturday, the UN World Food Programme said as famine conditions worsen in the Palestinian enclave.

In a statement issued on X, the WFP said 77 trucks had crossed into Gaza loaded with flour. All of them “were stopped along the way, with food taken mainly by hungry people trying to feed their families.”

It added that “after 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to let food pass them by.”

WFP said in a post on X on Saturday that “the humanitarian situation in #Gaza is spiraling. Border closures, hunger, and desperation have made aid delivery volatile — trucks are looted, people risk everything for a bag of flour.”

“To restore hope, ease fear and prevent further chaos we must flood communities with food – now.”

Videos showed dozens of people in Khan Younis carrying away sacks of flour. Similar scenes played out in Netzarim, where bursts of gunfire could be heard as crowds rushed to grab sacks of flour.

Hunger has spread in Gaza, with UN agencies warning of impending famine without a drastic scaling up of aid entering the territory and being distributed across it. There have been multiple incidents of looting.

The United Arab Emirates said last week that only one of 24 truckloads it had organized had reached the planned destination.

Last week, chaos broke out when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). According to the Palestinian health ministry, 11 people were killed and dozens injured in that incident.

The GHF, a controversial private foundation backed by Israel and the US, says it is continuing to scale up distribution at its four hubs in central and southern Gaza. It said that on Saturday it had distributed 30 truckloads of food totaling 28,800 boxes at its hub in Rafah in southern Gaza, adding that “today’s meal distribution was the largest to date and five times more than yesterday.”

The UN’s aid agencies have criticized the GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians.

Philippe Lazzarini, executive director of UNRWA – the UN agency that serves Palestinian territories – said 900 trucks had reportedly been sent into Gaza over the past two weeks, since an Israeli blockade was partially relaxed. The UN also says that it is struggling to coordinate safe distribution of aid inside Gaza once it arrives.

“That’s just over 10 per cent of the daily needs of people in Gaza. The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery to the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Lazzarini posted on X, comparing the quantity to the 600 to 800 truckloads coming into Gaza daily during the ceasefire earlier this year.

“The current mass starvation can be stopped. It takes political will,” he said.

Turkish authorities escalated their crackdown on the opposition-run Istanbul municipality Saturday over alleged corruption charges, detaining 30 people.

Those held include a former MP of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and the mayors of three CHP-run districts of Istanbul.

State-run Anadolu Agency reported that the detentions were part of four separate corruption investigations involving the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Saturday’s detentions are the fifth wave of a legal crackdown against the Istanbul administration since March 19, when Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested on corruption charges.

The arrest of Imamoglu, who is seen as the most viable challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 22-year rule, sparked widespread demonstrations calling for his release and an end to Turkey’s democratic backsliding under Erdogan.

The opposition and its supporters claim his arrest, and the subsequent arrest of dozens more from the CHP, are politically motivated.

“This time the coup didn’t come with boots and tanks, but with prosecutor’s robes,” said CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel on Saturday before a crowd of supporters in the northwestern city of Duzce.

However, the government insists Turkey’s judiciary is independent and free of political influence.

The second crackdown on CHP-run municipalities and districts occurred in late April, and the third and fourth waves were in late May, resulting in dozens of detentions.

Hamas says that it has responded to a ceasefire plan put forward by President Trump’s envoy on Gaza, but did not make clear what its exact response was.

In a statement Saturday, Hamas said that its “proposal” to the mediators – Qatar and Egypt — “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip.”

“As part of this agreement, ten living Israeli prisoners held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of eighteen bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners,” the statement said.

Negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire would begin immediately on the first day of the 60-day truce, according to the proposal. The terms of the agreement would also allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza “immediately” and be distributed “through agreed upon channels,” including the United Nations and the Red Crescent, according to the proposal.

But the draft agreement contained no intrinsic guarantee of a permanent end to the war, a key Hamas demand, nor assurances that the ceasefire will be extended as long as negotiations continue. Instead, it said that US President Donald Trump is “committed to working to ensure that good faith negotiations continue until a final agreement is reached.”

Hamas had initially signaled reluctance to accept the terms of the deal. Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Facebook Thursday that the framework did “not respond to any of our people’s demands” but that discussions were underway, nonetheless.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

India’s military has acknowledged for the first time that an unspecified number of its fighter jets were shot down during strikes on Pakistani-controlled territory amid intense fighting between the neighbors in early May.

Indian officials had previously refused to confirm even a single aircraft loss.

Asked by a Bloomberg correspondent on Saturday if Pakistan was correct in its claim that “six Indian jets” were downed, Anil Chauhan, the chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, initially denied the veracity of the claim, stating: “Absolutely incorrect and that is not information which, as I said, is important.”

But he went on to say that “what is important is why they went down,” seeming to imply that a number of jets were shot down during fighting between the historic foes, although not confirming how many. “That is more important for us. And what did we do after that? That’s more important,” he said, speaking to Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense forum, in Singapore.

The official also accepted that India’s military had made a “tactical mistake,” in response to another question about Pakistan’s claim.

“The good part is we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets, again targeting at long range,” he said.

Pakistan claimed its pilots shot down five Indian fighter jets in aerial battles – including three advanced French-made Rafales – after India launched its military operation against Pakistan in early May. Pakistan said it used Chinese-made fighter jets to shoot down the Indian combat aircraft, including the Rafales.

The fighting was a major escalation between the South Asian neighbors and came in response to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in April. India blamed Pakistan for the attack, an accusation rejected by Islamabad. A truce between Islamabad and New Delhi was announced on May 10.

After half a year of political turmoil, uncertainty and division, South Korea will vote for a new president to succeed Yoon Suk Yeol, the disgraced former leader who plunged the democratic nation into chaos by declaring martial law in December.

This election feels particularly significant; the country, a US ally and Asian economic and cultural powerhouse, has floundered for months with a revolving door of interim leaders while navigating Yoon’s impeachment trial and a multipronged investigation into the fateful night of his short-lived power grab.

All the while, South Korea’s economy has suffered, with US President Donald Trump’s trade war and a potential global recession looming in the background. Two men are each promising to help the country recover if elected – a lawyer turned politician dogged by legal cases who survived an assassination attempt, and a former anti-establishment activist turned conservative minister.

Polls open on Tuesday morning and a winner could be declared by Wednesday.

Here’s what you need to know.

Who are the main candidates?

The frontrunner is Lee Jae-myung, 60, of the liberal opposition Democratic Party.

A former underage factory worker from a poor family, Lee became a human rights lawyer before entering politics. He is a former mayor and governor, and most recently served as a lawmaker after narrowly losing to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election.

He survived an assassination attempt in January 2024 when a man stabbed him in the neck during a public event.

He again made headlines on December 3, 2024 – the night Yoon declared martial law and sent troops to parliament. Lee was among the lawmakers who rushed to the legislature and pushed past soldiers to hold an emergency vote to lift martial law. He live streamed himself jumping over a fence to enter the building, in a viral video viewed tens of millions of times.

On the campaign trail, Lee promised political and economic reforms, including more controls on a president’s ability to declare martial law, and revising the constitution to allow two four-year presidential terms instead of the current single five-year term.

He has emphasized easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula while holding on to the longtime goal of denuclearizing North Korea; he also supports boosting small businesses and growing the AI industry.

But Lee has also been dogged by legal cases, including several ongoing trials for alleged bribery and charges related to a property development scandal.

Separately, he was convicted of violating election law in another ongoing case that has been sent to an appeals court.

Lee’s main rival is Kim Moon-soo of the conservative People Power Party (PPP).

When Yoon left the party in May, he urged supporters to back Kim – a 73-year-old former labor minister, who had been a prominent labor activist at university, even being expelled and imprisoned for his protests. He eventually joined a conservative party, and stepped into the nomination after several rounds of party infighting.

The PPP initially selected Kim as its candidate; then dropped him, eyeing former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo instead. The party finally chose Kim after he filed legal challenges.

But the PPP remains deeply divided and its candidate trailed Lee in pre-election polling. In a statement after his nomination, Kim vowed to seek unity and build a “big tent” coalition to take on Lee, according to Reuters.

Kim has also promised to reform the country’s politics, judiciary and election management systems to rebuild public trust. His campaign emphasized making South Korea business-friendly through tax cuts and eased restrictions, and by promoting new technologies and nuclear energy.

Several third-party and independent candidates are also running for the presidency. They include Lee Jun-seok, a former PPP leader who founded his own conservative New Reform Party last year.

What are the issues on the table?

At the forefront of voters’ minds is the country’s flailing economy and rising cost of living. Youth unemployment has surged and consumption has declined, with the economy unexpectedly contracting in the first quarter of this year.

Part of that is due to Trump’s trade war – which has hit South Korea’s export-reliant economy hard. South Korea’s exports to the US fell sharply in the first few weeks of April after US tariffs kicked in, and the nation’s largest airline has warned the downturn could cost it up to $100 million a year.

Though officials from both nations have met for tariff talks, the political turmoil at home is likely slowing progress and hampering a possible trade deal until a new South Korean president is elected.

That’s why both main candidates have focused on the economy, promising to stabilize the cost of goods and improve opportunities in housing, education and jobs.

But there’s a host of other problems the next president will have to tackle, too – such as the country’s rapidly aging society and plummeting birth rates, which represent an urgent demographic crisis also seen in other countries in the region like Japan and China. Among the common complaints of young couples and singles are the high cost of childcare, gender inequality and discrimination against working parents.

Then there are regional tensions. There’s the ever-present threat from North Korea, which has rapidly modernized its armed forces, developing new weapons and testing intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach almost anywhere in the United States. Experts have warned in recent years that the country may also be preparing to resume nuclear tests, which it paused in 2018.

Across the Yellow Sea lies China, which South Korea has a strong trade relationship with – but historically fraught diplomatic relations.

South Korea also maintains a close security alliance with the US, and hosts nearly 30,000 American troops in the country. In recent years, South Korea, Japan and the US have drawn closer together, working to counter Chinese influence in the strategically important Asia-Pacific region.

What happened to Yoon?

Yoon was removed from office in April following months of legal wrangling, after parliament voted to impeach him late last year.

It was a remarkable fall from grace for the former prosecutor turned politician, who rose to prominence for his role in the impeachment of another president – only to eventually meet the same fate.

Soon after, Yoon moved out from the presidential residency and into an apartment in the capital Seoul. But his legal battles are ongoing; he faces charges including insurrection, an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death (though South Korea has not executed anyone in decades). Yoon denies all charges against him.