Israel/Palästina

The head of the embattled U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that as famine is taking hold across Gaza, the agency is facing an Israeli campaign to push it out of the occupied Palestinian territories and prevent it from carrying out its humanitarian mission. 

Jamie McGoldrick, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator overseeing crisis relief in Gaza, pushed back at Israeli claims that more than 1,000 trucks had entered Gaza in the last few days, but only around 800 had been collected on the Palestinian side. The veteran aid official also maintained that the deconfliction system in which humanitarians shared their coordinates with the warring sides was “consistently inaccurate”.

The United States pressed Hamas on Tuesday to accept a cease-fire deal with Israel that would halt fighting in Gaza for six weeks. It would also release some of the 100 or so hostages held by the U.S.-designated terror group in exchange for Israel freeing hundreds of Palestinians it has jailed.

The President of the UN General Assembly appealed on Monday for “all those with leverage” to use their power to bring an end to the six-month-long war in Gaza. Dennis Francis convened the UN’s most representative body, comprising all 193 Member States, following the Security Council’s failure to adopt a resolution put forward by the United States last month.  

UN-coordinated food convoys are three times more likely to be denied access to north Gaza than other aid convoys, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, reported on Tuesday.

The UN’s top human rights body adopted a resolution on Friday condemning the alleged “use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza”, while also calling for an arms embargo on Israel. 

Israel war Cabinet member Benny Gantz on Wednesday called for national elections in September, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government faces pressure at home and abroad over the war in Gaza.

UN humanitarians in Gaza have suspended operations at night for at least 48 hours in response to the killing of seven aid workers from the NGO World Central Kitchen on Tuesay. The move will allow for further evaluation of the security issues that impact both personnel on the ground and the people they are trying to serve, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Wednesday during the noon briefing for reporters in New York.

Israeli forces are blocking aid deliveries into famine-stricken northern Gaza as the five-month-long war grinds on despite recent strong demands from the top UN court and the Security Council for open aid access into the enclave and for a temporary ceasefire and the return of all hostages taken in October, as the UN plans an assessment mission into Al-Shifa Hospital, which had been occupied by Israeli troops for two weeks.

There are "reasonable grounds" to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said on Tuesday.