Israel / Palestine

Israel's army Thursday claimed that it currently controls 40 percent of Gaza City, the besieged enclave's largest city. The news comes as Israel faces international condemnation and backlash for its decision to expand an ongoing offensive in the Palestinian territory. 

The United Arab Emirates has warned Israel that annexing the occupied West Bank would cross a "red line" and undermine the spirit of the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between the two countries. 

US officials have further restricted visitor visas for Palestinians, by denying them to almost all applicants who use a Palestinian passport, media reports say. The development comes days after 80 Palestinian officials were denied visas ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Amid reports of increased Israeli military operations across Gaza City on Friday, UN aid agencies repeated urgent warnings of ongoing famine and a likely rise in preventable disease, linked to the dire living conditions in the war-shattered enclave.

Israeli and U.S. officials met Wednesday in Washington to discuss post-war Gaza, even as Israel’s military called the evacuation of Gaza City “inevitable” ahead of a new offensive and no sign of a ceasefire was in sight.

The situation in Gaza is catastrophic, with the worst-case scenario of famine now officially declared and Israel using starvation as a method of war “in its starkest terms”, speakers warned the Security Council today, among them the head of Save the Children International, who implored, Gaza’s “children have reached their breaking point.  Where is yours?” 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel announced the first steps of an operation to take over Gaza City.

While giving the go ahead to Israel’s planned takeover of Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has instructed negotiators to begin talks to end the war “under conditions acceptable to Israel.”

There was a muted response from Israel after Hamas said it had agreed to the latest proposal from Arab mediators for a ceasefire in Gaza and to free the remaining hostages.

More than 100 organisations have signed a joint letter calling on Israel to stop the "weaponisation of aid" into Gaza, as "starvation deepens". Humanitarian groups, including Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), say they are increasingly being told they are "not authorised" to deliver aid, unless they comply with the stricter Israeli regulations.