Antonio Guterres says he fears war in Gaza ‘will worsen exponentially’ without a truce as Israel’s Rafah assault looms.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has renewed his calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as a Hamas delegation is set to visit the Egyptian capital, Cairo, soon for renewed indirect talks.
“For the sake of the people of Gaza, the hostages & their families, and the region & the wider world – I strongly encourage the government of Israel & Hamas leadership to reach an agreement in their negotiations,” the secretary-general said in a post on X on Friday.
The UN chief added that he fears “the war will worsen exponentially” without a ceasefire.
For the sake of the people of Gaza, the hostages & their families, and the region & the wider world – I strongly encourage the government of Israel & Hamas leadership to reach an agreement in their negotiations.
Without that, I fear the war will worsen exponentially.
His comments come as CIA Director William Burns arrived in Cairo for meetings, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an Egyptian security source and three sources at Cairo airport.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, has been leading efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas to broker a deal for a ceasefire and captive release in Gaza.
A day earlier, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said he discussed the latest Israeli proposal for a truce with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
This week, the Palestinian group said it had received Israel’s latest position and would study it before submitting a reply.
Both US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron urged Hamas to accept the deal describing it as a “generous” offer. It includes a halt in fighting for 40 days and the exchange of dozens of Israeli captives for many more Palestinian prisoners.
But Hamas has stressed that it would not accept an agreement that does not lead to a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the unhindered return of displaced families to their homes.
Looming Rafah incursion
Amid the push for a ceasefire, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, voiced concern for civilians in the besieged enclave.
Laerke warned that a looming Israeli ground offensive into Gaza’s southern city of Rafah would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians there at risk.
“It could be a slaughter of civilians and an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire Strip because it is run primarily out of Rafah,” Laerke said at a Geneva news briefing on Friday.
Rafah has been the main gateway for aid into Gaza, which has been under a severe Israeli blockade that has brought the territory to the verge of famine.
Aid operations conducted out of Rafah include medical clinics and food distribution points, such as centres for malnourished children, Laerke said.
More than 1.5 displaced Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, which is enduring deadly Israeli attacks on a daily basis.
At least 34,622 Palestinians have been killed and 77,867 wounded in the Israeli assault on Gaza since October.
Its offensive has driven more than 80 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Most displaced people have moved to the south of the territory and ended up in Rafah near the border with Egypt.
Countries around the world have urged Israel against invading Rafah, warning of disastrous humanitarian consequences. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to launch a full scale attack against the city regardless of the outcome of the ceasefire talks.
This week, he said Israel will destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in Rafah “with or without a deal” so Israel can achieve “total victory” in the war.
In November during a weeklong truce, dozens of captives were released by Palestinian groups in Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. But Israeli forces renewed their offensive after the ceasefire expired.
Statement released after Israeli and US officials rebuke the court for possible arrest warrants over Gaza war.
The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court.
The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement on Friday that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence its officials must cease immediately.
While the prosecutor’s statement did not mention Israel, it was issued after Israeli and US officials have warned of consequences against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants over Israel’s war on Gaza.
“The Office seeks to engage constructively with all stakeholders whenever such dialogue is consistent with its mandate under the Rome Statute to act independently and impartially,” Khan’s office said.
“That independence and impartiality is undermined, however, when individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or against Court personnel should the Office, in fulfillment of its mandate, make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction.”
It added that the Rome Statute, which outlines the ICC’s structure and areas of jurisdiction, prohibits threats against the court and its officials.
— Int’l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) May 3, 2024
Over the past week, media reports have indicated that the ICC might issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in Gaza.
The court may prosecute individuals for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Israeli military has killed nearly 35,000 people in Gaza and destroyed large parts of the territory since the start of the war on October 7.
News of possible ICC charges against Israeli officials led to an intense pushback by the country and its allies in the United States.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu released a video message rebuking the court. “Israel expects the leaders of the free world to stand firmly against the ICC outrageous assault on Israel’s inherent right of self-defence,” he said.
“We expect them to use all the means at their disposal to stop this dangerous move.”
In Washington, several legislators called on President Joe Biden to intervene and thwart any ICC action against Israel.
“It would be a fatal blow to the judicial and moral standing of ICC to pursue this path against Israel,” Democratic Senator John Fetterman wrote in a social media post this week.
“Calling on [Biden] to intervene as part of the administration’s ongoing commitment to Israel.”
In 2021, the Biden administration lifted US sanctions against ICC officials that had been imposed by former President Donald Trump.
Israel and the US have not ratified the Rome Statute, but Palestine, a permanent observer state at the United Nations, has accepted the court’s jurisdiction.
The court has been investigating possible Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory since 2021. Khan has said his team is investigating alleged war crimes in the ongoing war in Gaza.
In October, Khan said the court had jurisdiction over any potential war crimes committed by Hamas fighters in Israel and by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The Yemeni group says it is expanding its attacks in response to the looming Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza.
Yemen’s Houthis will target ships heading to Israeli ports in any area within their range, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree has said in a televised speech.
“We will target any ships heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea in any area we are able to reach,” Saree said on Friday, adding that the decision will be implemented “immediately, and from the moment this statement is announced”.
The Iran-aligned Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile attacks on ships in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians and against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
This has forced shipping firms to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and has stoked fears that the Israeli war on Gaza could spread and destabilise the region.
In his speech, Saree also cited a looming “aggressive military operation” in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians are now sheltering, as a reason behind the group’s decision.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to send ground troops into Rafah, which is already being bombarded on a daily basis. The potential Israeli ground offensive has sparked an international outcry and calls on the Israeli government to halt its plans.
Netanyahu said a Rafah operation will take place whether or not Israel and Hamas agree on a ceasefire deal.
A Hamas delegation is set to visit Egypt in the coming days for further indirect ceasefire talks with the objective of “ending the aggression against” people in Gaza, according to a statement by the Palestinian group.
There have been significant sticking points in negotiations. Hamas has repeatedly said it would not accept a deal that does not guarantee a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the unhindered return of displaced families to their homes.
But an Israeli proposal includes a halt in fighting for 40 days and the exchange of dozens of Israeli captives for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Saree, the Houthi spokesperson, said the inability to reach a permanent ceasefire is another reason for the Houthis’ decision to target ships heading to Israeli ports.
“The Yemeni armed forces … will not hesitate to prepare for broader and stronger stages of escalation until the aggression is stopped and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted,” he said.
Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 34,622 Palestinians, destroyed much of the besieged enclave, forced some 1.7 million people from their homes, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine.
A United States-led military coalition has been bombing Houthi targets since January, but the Yemeni group has continued its attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea.
Marc Lamont Hill talks to Al Jazeera journalist Hind Khoudary on World Press Freedom Day about reporting from Gaza.
As the world marks Press Freedom Day, we turn to Gaza and the mounting toll of journalist deaths since October 7th. More than 100 media workers have been killed in the last seven months, as Israel continues its deadly war on Gaza.
So how are journalists in Gaza continuing their reporting? And are journalists in the West doing enough to shine a light on the plight of their Palestinian colleagues?
This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to Hind Khoudary, an Al Jazeera journalist who has been reporting from the ground since day one.
Students around the world are raising their voices to protest against Israel’s continuing war on Gaza.
More than 50 universities across the United States have now established Palestine solidarity encampments, demanding action to stop Israel’s war on Gaza.
What started as a student encampment at Columbia University in New York City two weeks ago has turned into a global student movement, expanding to Europe, Australia and Canada.
Student protesters have been met with brutal counterprotests, arrests and suspensions, raising debates around freedom of expression and the future of activism on college campuses.
But beyond the mainstream media’s attempt to reduce this movement to free speech and safety, why are students risking it all for Gaza?
Presenter: Myriam Francois
Guests: Mahmoud Al Thabata – Harvard student and activist Fraser Amos – University of Warwick student and activist Jasmine Al Rawi – Sydney University student and activist
Groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners say Adnan al-Barash, head of orthopaedics, died as a ‘result of torture’.
A prominent Palestinian doctor from Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital has died in an Israeli jail after more than four months of detention, according to the enclave’s health ministry and groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners.
Adnan al-Barash, the head of orthopaedics at Gaza’s largest medical facility, was detained by Israeli forces while temporarily treating patients at al-Awda Hospital in the north of the territory, the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Committee and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said in a joint statement on Thursday.
The two groups blamed Israel for “killing” another medical worker and described it as an “assassination”.
With his death, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the total number of medical personnel who have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza broke out in October has reached 496.
“The killing of Dr al-Barash would not be the last crime in light of the complete secrecy of the condition of prisoners in prisons, especially those arrested from the Gaza Strip,” it said.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said she was “extremely alarmed” after learning about al-Barash’s death.
“No Palestinian is safe under Israel’s occupation today. How many more lives will have to be taken before UN Member States, especially those demonstrating genuine concern for human rights globally, act to PROTECT the Palestinians?”
I am extremely alarmed by information that Dr. Adnan Albursh, a well-known surgeon at #alshifa_hospital, has died while detained by Israeli forces in the Ofer military prison. While I acquire more information, I URGE the diplomatic community to intervene with CONCRETE MEASURES to…
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 2, 2024
Al-Barash died on April 19, the prisoners’ groups said, citing Palestinian authorities. They alleged that his death was “part of a systematic targeting of doctors and the health system in Gaza”, adding that he died “as a result of torture”.
The Israeli prison service issued a statement on April 19 saying that a prisoner detained for national security reasons had died in Ofer prison. It gave no details about the cause of death.
A prison service spokesperson confirmed that the statement referred to al-Barash and said the incident was being investigated, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Israeli army responded to the AFP news agency when asked about the reported death in custody: “We are currently not aware of such [an] incident.”
Al-Barash was “tortured to death by the Israeli army in their secret detention sites. He was a great surgeon, full of life,” Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah, a British Palestinian surgeon, posted on X.
Abu Sittah, who volunteered in Gaza’s medical facilities during the first weeks of Israel’s war and worked at the al-Shifa and al-Alhi Baptist hospitals, wrote that al-Barash was “taken hostage from al-Awda Hospital”, adding that “he was beaten to death” by Israeli prison guards.
The murder of Dr Adnan Al-Bursh in Israeli prisons was a red-line in the same way the Al-Ahli Hospital massacre was. Once safely crossed the whole project can be rolled out. The lives of over 100 health workers in prisons are in danger.
— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) May 3, 2024
Doctors, hospitals targeted
Al-Barash, 50, was arrested with a group of other doctors in December at the al-Awda Hospital near the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
The prisoners’ rights groups said his body was still being held by the Israeli authorities.
The fate of the other doctors remains unknown.
While attacks on medical facilities and health workers are banned under international humanitarian law, according to the Geneva Conventions, the Israeli military has repeatedly targeted them.
The health ministry said about 1,500 medical workers have also been wounded during the war, while 309 remain imprisoned in Israeli jails.
It called on the international community and health and human rights organisations to intervene and protect prisoners held by Israel.
Israel routinely accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and says its operations have been justified by the presence of fighters, but it has not provided any evidence to back its claims. Hamas and medical staff deny such allegations.
Berlin, Germany – A Palestinian employee of Germany’s state-funded development agency has been imprisoned in Israel for more than a month, where she has been beaten and subject to abusive and humiliating treatment, her family members and lawyer say.
Baraa Odeh, 34, works for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and was detained by Israeli border guards on March 5 while returning to her home in Ramallah from a work trip to Germany.
She has since been sentenced to three months of administrative detention without charge.
Neither her husband, who is a German national, nor her family have had direct contact with Odeh since her arrest.
“Our life is upside down,” her sister Shireen Odeh told Al Jazeera, adding that her family is extremely concerned for her wellbeing.
“The only thing we do is think about her. We haven’t had a normal life since they arrested her.”
Mahmoud Hassan, a lawyer for Odeh who has spoken to her in prison, said she has been physically assaulted and subject to inhumane conditions.
“When she arrived [at Hasharon] prison, she was strip-searched while the policewoman was shouting at her. She was kept in a cell and later, a policeman that also shouted at her beat her on her leg,” said Hassan, who works with Addameer Prisoner Support, an NGO that supports Palestinian prisoners.
“The policeman pushed her to the corner and the keys he had injured her hand. He kicked her. She said she had marks on her chest. He was threatening to keep her in this cell overnight.
“After a couple of hours, he took her to another room that was not clean and was very cold.”
The second room had security cameras. The toilet was so dirty that Odeh refused to use it. She was then transferred to the overcrowded Damon prison and strip-searched again.
According to reports, detainees at the site have said it is difficult to access medical care or clean clothes. Guards have allegedly blindfolded and handcuffed prisoners when they are moved, and prevented them from sleeping.
Israel has regularly detained and imprisoned workers for Palestinian aid organisations, and sometimes UNRWA, but it is unusual for the Israeli army to hold an employee of a Western organisation such as the GIZ under administrative detention.
Since October 7, when the Israel-Palestine conflict escalated, Israel has sharply increased the arrest of Palestinians in the West Bank. Most have been held under administrative detention, without being charged or given due process. Administrative detention orders are often extended, sometimes for years.
Prisoner rights groups and released detainees have raised the alarm on Israel’s systematic use of torture in its prisons, especially in recent months.
Israel has arrested 8,425 Palestinians, including about 280 women and 540 children, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between October 7 and April 22, according to Addameer. Some 5,210 administrative detention orders have been issued during the same period, while 16 prisoners have died in Israeli prisons.
Meanwhile, Israel has prevented the Red Cross from making humanitarian visits to prison detainees since October 7.
Germany ‘critical’ of administrative detention
GIZ, one of the world’s largest international development agencies, has operated in the occupied Palestinian territories since the 1980s. It works on issues such as economic development, governance and peace-building. It is funded by the German government, one of Israel’s closest allies, and is overseen by its Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
“Israeli security forces have taken a national employee of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH into custody after a private trip. After a subsequent hearing, security forces ordered three months of administrative detention, to our knowledge unrelated to her professional employment,” said a spokesperson for GIZ.
“GIZ is working with all the means at its disposal to clarify the background. We are also in close contact with the family.”
Hassan told Al Jazeera she has been visited by a German consular official in prison. The German Federal Foreign Office did not comment on this visit when asked by Al Jazeera.
Odeh is a technical adviser for GIZ, where she has been employed for 10 years. She has recently worked on projects focused on youth empowerment and psychosocial support for children, mainly in the West Bank.
She is also a graduate student at Birzeit University, where she is active in a student representative body.
After she was stopped at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing, which separates Jordan from the West Bank, Odeh was first taken to Ofer detention centre and then to Hasharon prison, where she was allegedly beaten. A few days later she was transferred to Damon prison, where dozens of female detainees have been held.
On March 11, an Israeli judge ordered Odeh to administrative detention until June 4 on the grounds that she is a security threat.
During a hearing on March 19, she was accused of working with a banned political group, based on confidential military information. Her lawyer said she denies this accusation, and that Israel has not offered any evidence against her.
The BMZ told Al Jazeera that it does not comment on individual cases.
“The protection of human life and human dignity should be the top priority in every situation – including in the context of armed conflict and in detention facilities,” a spokesperson said. “The Federal Government is critical of the practice of administrative detention – ie, the possibility of detaining people over a longer period of time based on suspicion and without trial. International humanitarian law sets strict limits on this practice.”
At the time of publishing, Israeli officials had not responded to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
An international investigation has found that at least four Israeli-linked firms have been selling invasive spyware and cyber surveillance technology to Indonesia, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel and is the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
The research by Amnesty International’s Security Lab – based on open sources including trade records, shipping data and internet scans – uncovered links between official government bodies and agencies in the Southeast Asian country and Israeli tech firms NSO, Candiru, Wintego and Intellexa, a consortium of linked firms originally founded by a former Israeli military officer, going back to at least 2017.
German firm FinFisher, a rival to the Israeli companies and whose technology has been used to allegedly target government critics in Bahrain and Turkey, was also found to have sent such technologies to Indonesia.
Amnesty said there was little visibility about the targets of the systems.
“Highly invasive spyware tools are designed to be covert and to leave minimal traces,” it said in the report. “This built-in secrecy can make it exceedingly difficult to detect cases of unlawful misuse of these tools against civil society, and risks creating impunity-by-design for rights violations.”
It said this was of “special concern” in Indonesia where civic space had “shrunk as a result of the ongoing assault on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, personal security and freedom of arbitrary detention”.
Concerns about human rights have intensified in Indonesia since former general Prabowo Subianto was elected president in February at his third attempt. Prabowo, who will formally take office in October, has been accused of serious rights abuses in East Timor and West Papua, where Indigenous people have been fighting for independence from Indonesia since the 1960s. He denies the allegations against him.
The report said it had discovered “numerous spyware imports or deployments between 2017 and 2023 by companies and state agencies in Indonesia, including the Indonesian National Police [Kepala Kepolisian Negara Republik] and the National Cyber and Crypto Agency [Badan Siber dan Sandi Negara]”.
Amnesty said the Indonesian police declined to respond to its queries over the research findings, while the National Crypto and Cyber Agency had not responded to its questions by the time of publication.
The investigation noted that several of the imports passed through intermediary firms in Singapore, “which appear to be brokers with a history of supplying surveillance technologies and/or spyware to state agencies in Indonesia”.
Over an investigation lasting several months, Amnesty collaborated with Indonesian news magazine Tempo, Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and news and research organisations based in Greece and Switzerland.
“The murky and complex ecosystem of suppliers, brokers, and retailers of spyware and surveillance, as well as complex corporate structures, allow this industry to evade accountability and regulation easily,” Amnesty International Indonesia director, Usman Hamid, was quoted as saying in Tempo.
It is not the first time that Indonesia has been linked to Israeli spyware, with Tempo reporting in 2023 that traces of NSO’s Pegasus spyware, which can infect targeted mobile phones without any user interaction, had been found in Indonesia.
In 2022, the Reuters news agency said more than a dozen senior Indonesian government and military officials had been targeted the year before with Israeli-made spyware.
Fake websites
Amnesty found evidence that, unlike Pegasus, much of the spyware required the target to click a link to lead them to a website, usually imitating the sites of legitimate news outlets or politically critical organisations.
Researchers found links between some of the fake sites and IP addresses linked to Wintego, Candiru (now named Saito Tech) and Intellexa, which is known for its Predator one-click spyware.
In the case of Intellexa, the fake sites mimicked Papuan news website Suara Papua as well as Gelora, which is the name for a political party but also an unrelated news outlet.
Amnesty also found Candiru-linked domains imitating legitimate Indonesian news sites, including the state news agency ANTARA.
Indonesia does not currently have laws that govern the lawful use of spyware and surveillance technologies but has legislation safeguarding freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and personal security. It has also ratified multiple international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Amnesty urged the Indonesian government to institute a ban on such highly invasive spyware.
Citing sources it did not name, Haaretz said NSO and Candiru were not currently active in Indonesia.
It reported that Singapore had summoned a senior Israeli official in the summer of 2020 after “authorities there had discovered that Israeli firms had sold advanced digital intelligence technologies to Indonesia”.
In responding to Friday’s findings, NSO cited human rights regulations in response to questions from Haaretz.
“With respect to your specific inquiries, there have been no active geolocation or mobile endpoint intelligence systems provided by the NSO Group to Indonesia under our current human rights due diligence procedure,” it was quoted as saying by the newspaper, referring to a framework it introduced in 2020.
Intellexa was founded by former Israeli military officer Tal Dilian [File: Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]
Candiru, meanwhile, told Amnesty that it operated in accordance with Israeli defence export rules and could neither confirm nor deny the questions posed by the organisation.
Wintego did not respond to requests for comment on the research findings, Haaretz said.
Israel’s defence exports body declined to comment on whether it had approved sales to Indonesia.
It told Amnesty the sale of cyber surveillance systems was authorised only for government entities for “anti-terror and law enforcement purposes”.
The United States blacklisted NSO in 2021 over concerns its phone-hacking technology had been used by foreign governments to “maliciously target” political dissidents, journalists and activists. The designation makes it harder for US companies to do business with it.
Candiru and Intellexa are also subject to the US’s trade control rules.
In March, the US imposed sanctions on Intellexa for “developing, operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology used to target Americans, including US government officials, journalists, and policy experts”.
UN Development Programme official estimates post-war reconstruction will cost between $40-50bn.
The level of destruction in Gaza has not been since World War II, according to a United Nations official who estimated that post-war reconstruction could cost up to $50bn.
“We have not seen anything like this since 1945,” Abdallah al-Dardari, director of the regional bureau for Arab states at the UN Development Programme (UNDP), said on Thursday during an online news briefing. “That intensity, in such a short time and the massive scale of destruction,” he added.
More than 70 percent of all housing has been destroyed, the UN official said, and about 37 million tonnes of debris needs to be removed. By comparison, during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, about 2.4 million tonnes of debris were removed.
Overall, the level of destruction is such that the UNDP estimates that the human development index in Gaza has regressed by 40 years. The index assesses factors including years of gains in schooling, education attainment, health and life expectancy at birth.
“All investments in human development … for the last 40 years in Gaza have been wiped out,” al-Dardari said. “We are almost back in the ’80s,” he added.
The overall cost of post-war reconstruction in Gaza would cost between $40-50bn “at least”, he said.
The UN agency’s top priority would be a three-year post-war recovery phase with the aim of providing temporary shelters and basic services for Palestinians to be able to return to the sites of their former homes.
The Israeli army has been pounding the Gaza Strip since October 7, in one of the most intense aerial bombardments in modern history. More than 34,500 people have been killed, according to Palestinian authorities, large swaths of the territory have reduced to rubble and famine looms in parts of northern Gaza amid Israel’s severe restrictions on supplies of food and humanitarian aid.
Israel launched the assault after Hamas led an unprecedented assault into communities in southern Israel killing at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities, and taking about 240 captives into the Strip.
On top of the destruction, the humanitarian situation inside Gaza has been deteriorating amid restrictions on the number of aid trucks allowed to enter the Strip. UN agencies and aid groups have urged Israel to open more land crossings to Gaza to facilitate aid access and warned of a looming man-made famine. Israel has denied restricting the flow of aid into Gaza and blamed aid groups operating in Gaza for any delays.
On Thursday, US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said Israel should prevent attacks on aid convoys bound for Gaza after Israeli protesters assaulted two Jordanian aid trucks on their way to Gaza.
Meanwhile, officials have renewed efforts around ceasefire and captives negotiations following weeks of impasse.
Hamas said a delegation is set to visit Egypt soon for further talks. The group’s political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh affirmed on Thursday that the group is studying a ceasefire proposal presented by Israel with a “positive spirit”.
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