Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
Coming to you live from London, I'm James Kamarasabi.
And coming up later in the programme, a question for the convicted sex offender Ghislaine 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,
we'll 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 7th,
2023.
Dr Hamis El-Essi is working at Wafa Hospital in Gaza City.