LONG: Both sides face increasing pressure to halt the fighting to allow urgently needed aid into the territory, and the safe evacuation of Israeli hostages. We get the latest on these talks and hear about the situation on the ground in Gaza.

Also on the programme: the head of the European Council calls on EU countries to shift their economies to a war footing; and how the architecture known as tropical modernism developed in Africa.

(Picture: Pictures of hostages kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza. Credit: REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)