Tag: israel

Biden warns Israel risks losing support over ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing | Israel-Palestine conflict News

US President Joe Biden has warned that Israel risks losing international support over its “indiscriminate bombing” of civilians in its war against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“Israel’s security can rest on the United States, but right now it has more than the United States. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world supporting them,” Biden said to donors during a fundraiser on Tuesday.

“They’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” Biden said.

More than 18,000 people have been killed and nearly 50,000 others wounded in the Israeli assault on Gaza since October 7, according to the Palestinian health officials. Many more dead are uncounted under the rubble or beyond the reach of ambulances.

Israel launched its onslaught in response to a raid by Hamas fighters from Gaza who killed about 1,200 people and took 240 others captive in southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

Speaking at a political fundraiser, Biden also criticised the Israeli cabinet.

“This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” the president said. “He [Netanyahu] has to change this government. This government in Israel is making it very difficult.”

He also said that Israel “can’t say no” to a Palestinian state, which Israeli hardliners, including in Netanyahu’s government, have opposed.

Biden’s sharp comments coincided with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan preparing to travel to Israel for talks with the Israeli war cabinet.

Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel had received “full backing” from the US for its ground offensive on Gaza and that Washington had blocked “international pressure to stop the war.”

“There is disagreement about ‘the day after Hamas’ and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well,” he added.

Washington has said it envisions an eventual return by the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, which Hamas seized from the West Bank-based body in 2007.

UNGA expected to call for ceasefire

The comments came before the UN General Assembly was expected to vote on a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, after the US vetoed a draft resolution in the Security Council last week.

In October the General Assembly had called for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in a resolution adopted with 121 votes in favour, 14 against – including the US – and 44 abstentions.

Some diplomats predict the resolution on Tuesday would garner greater support than the previous motion.

“The US is looking more and more isolated on the international arena and that is not a good place for the United Nations and President Biden to be,” Salman Shaikh, a policy adviser at The Shaikh Group told Al Jazeera.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued support for a ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement on Tuesday.

In Gaza, Israeli shelling targeted both a hospital and an UNWRA school in northern Gaza. In Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s main city, residents said Israeli tank shelling was now focused on the city centre.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk described the situation in Gaza as “well beyond breakdown”, and another UN agency said that 18 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure had been destroyed since the war began.

“If you look at the humanitarian situation at the moment, it is so precarious … extremely precarious,” Turk said. “It’s on the verge of well beyond breakdown.”

The UN’s satellite analysis agency UNOSAT examined high-resolution satellite images to determine that nearly 40,000 buildings have been destroyed in the besieged enclave, with 80 percent of the damage in northern Gaza.

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What is the situation in Gaza’s Khan Younis as Israel intensifies attacks? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Since the one-week truce in Gaza ended on December 1, Israel has expanded its offensive to the besieged enclave’s south, where more than a million Palestinians sought shelter following Israeli bombardment in the north.

Israel has intensified attacks on Khan Younis declaring it a “dangerous combat zone”. Gaza’s second-largest city, which was dubbed a safe zone in the initial days of the war, is now a scene of devastation and suffering. Fear of Israeli strikes haunts people while lack of food and other basic amenities have driven people to misery amid bloody street fighting.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to attack northern Gaza, raiding the Kamal Adwan Hospital on Tuesday.

Here is what is happening in Khan Younis and the rest of southern Gaza.

What is happening in Khan Younis?

Two people were killed in Khan Younis in Israeli artillery shelling on Tuesday.

A bicycle was reportedly hit on Sunday in the centre of Khan Younis, killing two Palestinian children who were riding it, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.

The city has been hit by air strikes and fire belts, causing casualties and injuries. Injured Palestinians were largely taken to the Nasser and European hospitals in the city, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant pushed back against international calls on Monday to wrap up the country’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying the current phase of the operation against the Hamas group will “take time”.

How many people fled to Khan Younis?

Over one million Palestinians have been displaced from northern Gaza since October 13, when the Israeli military ordered people to evacuate to the south on a 24-hour notice.

More than 215,000 displaced Palestinians took shelter in dozens of UNRWA shelters in Khan Younis.

However, on December 3, Israel ordered an immediate evacuation of about 20 percent of the city, which was home to more than 400,000 people before the war erupted on October 7. The area marked for evacuation included 21 shelters and 50,000 internally displaced people, mostly from the north of Gaza, according to OCHA.

Several of those who were displaced to Khan Younis had to further move to Rafah city near the Egyptian border, some even moving for the fourth time since the outbreak of violence.

Now, thousands of displaced people from Khan Younis itself, as well as the north of Gaza are squeezed in the dangerously overcrowded al-Fukhari, south of Khan Younis. Hospitals and schools in the area are filled beyond capacity, as the Israeli army continues to order Palestinians to move further south.

Shrinking space and the rising danger of health issues and infections due to the lack of water have been an increasing cause for concern.

Attacks on southern Gaza

Thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee further to the south towards the city of Rafah. Twenty Palestinians, including seven children and at least five women, were killed in Israeli attacks on Rafah on Tuesday. There are reports of more air attacks.

Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian affairs coordinator, says his organisation was hopeful and has been informed that once the war moved to southern Gaza, there would be a different, more precise approach to the fighting.

“[But] what’s happened is the assault on southern Gaza has been no less than the north. It’s raging through Khan Younis at the moment, and it is threatening Rafah. The compression of the population is greater. We cannot be sure of any of our points of operation to be safe,” he told Al Jazeera.

Central Gaza has not been spared either as an Israeli air strike overnight flattened a residential building where some 80 people were staying in the Maghazi refugee camp, killing at least 22 on Monday.

Israeli air strikes and the brutal ground invasion have killed at least 18,205 Palestinians and wounded 49,645 others. More than 80 percent of the casualty figures are civilians.

Do southern Gaza residents have access to food?

UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri says “every single Palestinian in Gaza is going hungry” and warns world is witnessing a “genocide”.

UN officials and rights groups have been urging Israel to speed up the deployment of humanitarian aid to Gaza by opening the southern Karem Abu Salem (Karem Shalom) border with Israel.

Israel announced that it would conduct security screenings of the aid at Karem Abu Salem beginning on Tuesday. The first batch of humanitarian trucks were inspected and on their way to the Rafah border.

Palestinians who are staying in the north are going hungry as hardly any aid delivery has made its way to the area devastated by Israel’s relentless bombardments.

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How Arab eco-normalisation of Israel covers up its crimes | Opinions

As world leaders gathered in Dubai for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), Israeli President Isaac Herzog and a delegation of two dozen Israeli officials were allowed to join them. That is despite the fact that Israel is not only committing genocide in Gaza, but also ecocide of devastating proportions.

COP28 is yet another venue Israel has used to greenwash its image and solidify its normalisation with Arab states. Indeed, Herzog met with a number of Arab leaders who have chosen to normalise relations with Israel and have pursued joint “green initiatives” with Israeli companies.

So-called environmentally friendly collaborative projects between Israel and Arab states constitute a form of eco-normalisation – the use of “environmentalism” to greenwash and normalise Israeli oppression and environmental injustice.

This effectively extends Israeli green colonialism – which has been devastating Palestine for decades – into the rest of the Arab world. Resisting it must be part of Arab solidarity and struggle in support of the Palestinian cause.

Water apartheid

One prominent example of eco-normalisation is a United Arab Emirates-backed Israeli-Jordanian deal to exchange desalinated water for energy.

In November 2021, Jordan, Israel and the UAE signed a declaration of intent for Project Green and Project Blue, jointly known as Project Prosperity. It envisioned the construction of a 600MW solar power plant by Masdar, a UAE state-owned renewable energy company, on Jordanian territory to sell electricity to Israel and the expansion of an Israeli water desalination programme to export 200 million cubic metres of water to Jordan.

The three countries intended to announce a concrete agreement on the implementation of the projects at the COP28 in the UAE, but ahead of the start of the conference, Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said that his country would not sign anything due to the war in Gaza. However, there has been no official announcement about the full termination of the deal.

While the future of the project is uncertain at this time, it still has contributed to Israel’s eco-normalisation. It has helped support an image of the country as a green technology pioneer “assisting” its “underdeveloped” neighbours suffering from the consequences of climate change.

The project effectively covers up Israel’s responsibility for water scarcity in Jordan. Israel has been depleting its neighbour’s water resources by usurping control over the Jordan River and restricting access to the resources of the Yarmouk River. It controls double the water share it should be entitled to under the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention and refuses to abide by previous sharing arrangements.

Mekorot, the Israeli national water company, has played a leading role in depriving Jordan of its fair share of water. It has been diverting water from the Jordan River to Israeli communities, including ones in the Naqab desert, which is directly affecting water availability for Jordan.

It also has created a water supply network for the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, depriving the native Palestinian population of adequate access to water resources and effectively imposing water apartheid on them. It has been enabled to do so by the Israeli military occupation and its Military Order 158 of 1967, which declares that Israel has full control over all water resources in the occupied territories and none can be developed without its permission – which, of course, Palestinians almost never receive.

Despite the leading role it is playing in pushing Jordan and the occupied West Bank towards water scarcity, Mekorot has been touted internationally as a “pioneer” in water desalination technology. Its participation in water projects, especially in the Global South, has contributed to Israel’s greenwashing efforts.

Those would undoubtedly continue even as Israel triggers what is already shaping to be a water catastrophe in Gaza.

Even before the ongoing brutal war, the Gaza Strip was struggling with a major water crisis. It was estimated that 96 percent of the water in its aquifer was contaminated and unfit for human use. This was very much due to the fact that the siege Israel imposed on the Strip in 2007 had prevented proper water and wastewater management and treatment.

Since mid-October, even the few existing wastewater and desalination facilities have become inoperable as Israel has cut off electricity and fuel supplies. In addition, the Israeli bombardment has targeted water pipes and sewers throughout Gaza.

Experts in public health have raised concerns about the looming outbreak of infectious diseases, including waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid. Israel’s plan to flood tunnels under Gaza with seawater may lead to the further contamination of underground water and soil, resulting in a water-related environmental and human disaster.

Green energy colonialism

The eco-normalisation of Israel has also extended into the energy sector.

A few months ahead of COP27, in August 2022, two Israeli companies, Enlight Renewable Energy (ENLT) and NewMed Energy, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop renewable energy projects in Jordan, Morocco, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, as well as Saudi Arabia and Oman, which have not officially normalised relations with Israel.

Their plans include the development, construction and operation of wind and solar power plants and energy storage. These projects, of course, bolster the image of Israel as a hub for creative renewable energy technologies and help greenwash its image.

Both Enlight and NewMed have been involved in projects that reinforce the Israeli occupation and apartheid. Enlight has two wind farm projects in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights and is developing another wind energy project in the northern part of the Naqab desert and the southern part of the occupied West Bank, in partnership with several illegal Israeli settlements.

NewMed is a subsidiary of the Delek Group, which has been involved in gas exploration projects in disputed maritime areas, near Palestinian and Lebanese waters. It also owns a chain of petrol stations across illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights and supplies fuel to the Israeli occupation forces.

Of course, the native Palestinian and Syrian populations of these occupied territories do not benefit from Israeli energy projects and they are effectively denied sovereignty over their energy resources.

Palestinians inhabiting Area C have no access to the electricity grid in the area, which has been developed by Israel to serve Israeli illegal settlements. The Israeli authorities also refuse to issue them permits to set up solar panels, which could provide an alternative source of energy.

In Gaza, before the war, Palestinians lived with just a few hours of electricity per day due to the Israeli siege. As part of the complete blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since October 7, Israel has totally cut off electricity from reaching Gaza and targeted alternative sources of energy like solar panels. Even the solar panel systems operating in hospitals such as al-Shifa have been bombed.

Israel’s exploitation of Palestinian resources to the detriment of the Palestinian people masked in the form of “green projects” is a perfect illustration of green energy colonialism.

Energy colonialism refers to companies and states plundering and exploiting the resources and land of impoverished countries and communities to generate energy for their own use and benefit.

As we have argued in our book Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region, renewable energy colonialism is an extension of the colonial relations of plunder and dispossession.

It effectively maintains the same political, economic and social structures that have generated inequality, impoverishment and dispossession in formerly and still colonised places and shifts the negative effects of energy production – including pollution – to these already marginalised communities.

Resisting eco-normalisation and colonialism

Eco-normalisation allows Israel to position itself in the energy and water sectors regionally and globally as a leader in innovation and green technologies, thereby reinforcing its political and diplomatic power.

With the exacerbating climate and energy crises, it will likely use the increasing reliance of other countries on its technology and energy and water resources as yet another tool to marginalise and sideline the Palestinian struggle.

Thus, there is an abiding connection between Israeli greenwashing, which is reinforced through eco-normalisation, and the consolidation of apartheid and settler colonialism in Palestine and the Golan Heights.

The dark tunnel that is Palestinians’ life under Israeli oppression is getting darker. Yet a glimpse of light can be seen that illuminates the Palestinians’ long path to liberation: that light is the increasing resistance of the Palestinian people, who refuse to be isolated, dehumanised and obliterated.

The struggle to topple Israel’s oppressive occupation and apartheid regime is also part of the wider struggle for self-determination and emancipation of dispossessed and marginalised peoples across the world. Colonial attempts to further isolate Palestine from the rest of the Arab world through eco-normalisation can be thwarted by the collectively enacted power of Arabs and other peoples.

To this end, social movements, environmental groups, trade unions, student associations and civil society organisations in the Arab region and beyond must intensify their protests against their governments until they end their normalisation ties with Israel. International grassroots movements should increase their support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and shine more light on the role Israeli “green technology” companies play in the colonisation of Palestine.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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Israeli forces raid Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital after days of strikes | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Dozens of patients and about 3,000 displaced people are inside, UN says, as Gaza Health Ministry calls for international help.

Israeli forces have raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, after besieging and shelling it for several days, sources and the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a ministry spokesman, said Israeli troops were rounding up men and boys in the courtyard of the hospital in Beit Lahiya, including medical staff, on Tuesday.

“We fear their arrest and the arrest of the medical teams or their killing,” he said, calling for international intervention.

“We call on the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross to act immediately to save the lives of those in the hospital.”

Inside, there are patients, medical staff and thousands of civilians who have taken refuge after being forced to flee their homes.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from southern Gaza on Tuesday, said the raid was taking place “under heavy gunfire and artillery shelling”.

“Tanks pushed deeper at the gates and the entire facility is under heavy bombardment,” he said. “Loudspeakers are being used to call anyone aged above 15 to come out of the building with their hands in the air.”

He added that Israeli forces who raided the facility also asked security guards protecting the hospital to hand over their weapons.

Kamal Adwan is the only remaining health facility within the northern part of Gaza, our correspondent said. “Over the last few days, it came under heavy bombardment and air strikes and tank shelling destroying the vast majority of its facilities, and all the major roads leading to it.”

Hospital ‘surrounded’

The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said two mothers were killed when the maternity department of Kamal Adwan was hit on Monday.

“The hospital remains surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks,” OCHA said, adding that the hospital was currently accommodating 65 patients, including 12 children in the intensive care unit and six newborns in incubators.

“About 3,000 internally displaced persons remain trapped in the facility and are awaiting evacuation with extreme shortages of water, food and power reported,” it added.

The situation in Kamal Adwan is catastrophic, Leo Cans, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) head of mission for Palestine, told Al Jazeera.

“We are outraged by what’s going on,” he said, adding that medics in Gaza were operating in conditions comparable to World War I.

“We are operating on the floor. Children are arriving with very bad injuries, and [surgeons] have to do multiple operations but there are no more beds,” he said.

Israeli troops have previously raided and evacuated other medical facilities in Gaza, including the Indonesian Hospital and al-Shifa, the territory’s largest hospital.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says only 11 out of 36 of Gaza’s hospitals remain partially functional and pleaded for them to remain intact.

“We cannot afford to lose any healthcare facilities or hospitals,” Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territories, told a UN press briefing by videolink from Gaza. “We hope, we plea that this will not happen.”

More than 18,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its war on Gaza on October 7.

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Puma to end sponsorship of Israel’s national football team in 2024 | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The company says the move, planned since last year, is unrelated to boycott calls against it amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

Sports brand Puma will stop sponsoring Israel’s national football team in 2024, according to a company spokesperson.

The move was planned since last year and is not related to consumer boycott calls against Israel amid the Gaza war, the spokesperson for the German sportswear firm said on Tuesday.

Puma has long faced boycott calls over its brand alliance with the Israel Football Association (IFA), but such calls have intensified during Israel’s two-month offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians.

In a statement emailed to the Reuters news agency, a Puma spokesperson said the company’s contracts with several federations, including Serbia and Israel, were due to expire in 2024 and would not be renewed.

The spokesperson said Puma would soon announce deals with several new national teams, as part of its “fewer-bigger-better strategy”.

An internal Puma memo viewed by the Financial Times, which first reported the news, also confirmed the shake-up.

The memo said Puma would continue to “evaluate all other existing partnerships as well as any other upcoming opportunities to ensure we have a strong roster of national teams”, the newspaper reported.

Puma first signed its contract with the IFA to provide kit to players in 2018.

Since then, the company has faced boycott calls from activists, who say the IFA also includes teams based in Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

Global firms supportive of Israel have faced growing boycott calls by the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement before and during the Gaza war.

Earlier this week, fashion company Zara pulled an advertising campaign from its website after it drew a backlash for appearing to mimic scenes of suffering in Gaza and sparked boycott calls from pro-Palestine activists.

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Tanker ‘attacked by cruise missile’ as it traverses Bab el-Mandeb Strait | Shipping News

US says the Norwegian-registered Strinda caught fire after it was struck but no casualties were reported.

A tanker ship travelling through the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula off the coast of Yemen has been hit by a missile.

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said the Strinda, a Norwegian-owned-and-operated ship, was hit at about midnight local time (21:00 GMT on Monday).

The ship “was attacked by what is assessed to have been an Anti-Ship Cruise Missile (ASCM) launched from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen while passing through the Bab-el-Mandeb”, CENTCOM said in a statement.

The private intelligence firm Dryad Global said the Strinda, an oil and chemical tanker, was on its way from Malaysia to the Suez Canal and had armed guards on board as it went through the strait.

The attack on the vessel comes as threats on commercial shipping in the area amid the Israel-Hamas war escalate. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis have carried out a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and launched drones and missiles targeting Israel. In recent days, they have threatened to target any vessel they believe is either going to or coming from Israel.

The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, although the Associated Press news agency reported rebel military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree saying an important announcement would be made soon.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a naval agency providing security alerts to ships, earlier reported a fire on an unidentified vessel about 15 nautical miles (28km) off the Yemeni port of Mokha.

The coordinates correspond to the last known location of the Strinda, which is part of the fleet of Bergen-based Mowinckels Rederi, according to its website. The company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

CENTCOM said the missile attack caused a fire but there were no casualties. The USS Mason had responded to the Strinda’s mayday call and was providing assistance, it added.

The US and France have stopped short of saying their ships have been targeted but have said that Houthi drones have headed towards their ships and been shot down in self-defence.

Washington has so far declined to directly respond to the attacks, as has Israel, whose military continues to describe the ships as not having links to their country.

In November, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The rebels still hold the vessel near the port city of Hodeidah. Separately, a container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean.

A tentative ceasefire between the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government has been holding after years of fighting that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

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EU mulls sanctions on violent Israeli settlers in occupied West Bank | Israel-Palestine conflict News

EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell says the bloc is ‘alarmed’ by the deadly violence in the occupied territory by ‘extremist settlers’.

The European Union’s top diplomat says he will propose sanctions on Jewish settlers who are violent against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday said the bloc was “alarmed by the violence in the West Bank by extremist settlers” and condemned the Israeli government’s decision to approve 1,700 more housing units in Jerusalem, in what Brussels considers a violation of international law.

“The time has come to move from words to actions … and to start adopting the measures we can take with regard to the acts of violence against the Palestinian population in the West Bank,” Borrell told reporters after meeting EU foreign ministers in Brussels on their next steps regarding the Israeli war on Gaza.

Since October 7, settler attacks have more than doubled against Palestinians, according to the United Nations. Combined with raids by Israeli forces, at least 275 people have been killed in the occupied territory since, including at least 63 children, with a further 3,365 injured.

While Borrell said ministers were not entirely enthused about the proposed measure, he will work with the EU officials to draw up a list of prominent settlers who have engaged in attacks.

The foreign policy chief has yet to submit a formal proposal, but he said he will suggest the settlers be sanctioned for human rights abuses.

Borrell did not give details about the sanctions but EU officials have said they will include bans on travel to the EU, a challenging proposal some diplomats say, as countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary are staunch allies of Israel.

However, last week, Israel’s biggest ally, the United States, imposed a visa ban on settlers involved in violent attacks in the occupied West Bank.

France last month said it was also considering such measures, while Belgium said it will ban settlers from the country.

Israeli settler violence has surged in the last year after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which itself includes ultranationalist settlers, signalled support.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, considered illegal by much of the world, are built on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

The number of settlements in the occupied territory have increased drastically in the last decade, with Palestinians describing settler violence as part of a larger Israeli effort to force them from their land.

Borrell also said he would propose a separate sanctions programme against Hamas, which saw no opposition by any EU minister. The EU already considers Hamas a terrorist organisation.

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UN envoys say ‘enough’ to Israel-Hamas war on trip to Gaza border | Israel-Palestine conflict News

UN Security Council envoys have spoken of unimaginable suffering and urged an end to the war in the Gaza Strip as they visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only entry point for aid into the besieged territory.

China’s representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, asked by reporters on Monday if he had a message to nations that oppose a ceasefire in Gaza, said simply: “Enough is enough.”

A majority of UN member states support an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as dire conditions worsen for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

The United States, which backs Israel, last week vetoed a draft resolution at the Security Council that called for an immediate ceasefire as Israeli tanks and troops press an assault that has displaced most of Gaza’s population and killed and injured thousands.

A dozen Security Council envoys attended the trip organised by the United Arab Emirates to visit Rafah, just days after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that thousands of people in the besieged Palestinian enclave were “simply starving”.

After flying to the town of Al-Arish, Egypt, they were briefed by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on conditions in Gaza before heading towards Rafah 48km (30 miles) away.

“The reality is even worse than what words can speak,” Ecuador’s UN ambassador, Jose De La Gasca, told reporters after the UNRWA briefing.

The US and French representatives did not participate in the trip.

UAE Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said the envoys were told Gazans are dying from malnutrition, a collapsing medical system and a lack of water and food in addition to the actual conflict in itself.

Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air, sea and land; imposed a siege; and mounted a ground offensive since October 7, killing more than 18,000 people and injuring more than 49,500, according to Palestinian officials. Israeli forces launched the assault after Hamas carried out attacks on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 captive, according to Israeli authorities.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said on Monday that the bodies of at least 208 Palestinians had arrived at several hospitals in Gaza in the previous few hours.

At least 416 people had been wounded in the same timeframe, he said, while “a large number” of victims remains under the rubble as Israeli forces block ambulances from reaching these areas.

‘Hunger is prevailing’

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini described an “implosion of civil order” in which Gazans who have not eaten for days looted aid distribution centres and stopped trucks on roads as they tried to secure supplies for their families.

“There is not enough assistance,” Lazzarini said. “Hunger is prevailing in Gaza. … Most of the people are just sleeping on the concrete.”

Russian envoy Vasily Nebenzia described conditions in Gaza as “catastrophic” and said those countries against a ceasefire should “face the reality and afford dignity to the Palestinians”.

Nebenzia rejected accusations it was hypocritical to condemn Israel when Moscow continues to press its war on Ukraine.

Limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, but aid officials said it comes nowhere near to satisfying the most basic needs of residents.

Displaced Palestinians gather in the yard of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital on December 10, 2023, as battles continue between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian territory [File: AFP]

Meanwhile, the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said the situation in Gaza is “catastrophic, apocalyptic” with destruction proportionally “even greater” than Germany experienced in World War II.

“The human suffering constitutes an unprecedented challenge to the international community,” Borrell said. “Civilian casualties are between 60 and 70 percent of the overall deaths” and “85 percent of the population is internally displaced”.

With almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people crowded into the south after Israel’s offensive and evacuation orders in the north, there are growing concerns among Palestinians that they could be forced out of the territory altogether in a repeat of the 1948 mass expulsion known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, surrounding the establishment of the state of Israel.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said on Monday that people in southern Gaza were falling ill as they pack into crowded shelters or sleep in tents in open areas.

Nicholas Papachrysostomou, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said “every other patient” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory infection after prolonged exposure to cold and rain.

“In some shelters, 600 people share a single toilet. We are already seeing many cases of diarrhoea. Often children are the worst affected,” he said.

Aid delivery stalled

As the UN envoys travelled towards the Rafah border, hundreds of trucks were parked along the road leading to the crossing, waiting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Nusseibeh said Abu Dhabi was coordinating with relevant authorities so drinkable water could be pumped into Gaza from an Emirati-funded desalination plant in Egypt.

While Israel has severely restricted the water going into Gaza, it is also unclear if Gaza’s infrastructure is capable of receiving the desalinated water after damage caused by weeks of heavy Israeli bombardment.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 100 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Egypt on Sunday, the same number as the previous day.

It noted that was “well below” the daily average of 500 truckloads, including fuel, that entered every working day prior to October 7.

A UNICEF employee, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said a logistics centre near Al-Arish was storing items Israel had banned from being sent into Gaza, including solar panels and an ultrasound machine. The employee said they were banned because they were electrical and contained metal.

The 15-member Security Council is negotiating a UAE-drafted resolution that demands warring parties “allow the use of all land, sea and air routes to and throughout” Gaza for aid deliveries.

It would also establish a UN-run aid monitoring mechanism in Gaza Strip. It was not clear when the draft resolution could be put to a vote.

Guterres last week formally warned the Security Council of a global threat to peace and security posed by the conflict.

He said half of Palestinians in the north of Gaza and at least a third of those displaced in the south were “simply starving” and later criticised the council for having “failed” to help bring about a humanitarian ceasefire.

The UN General Assembly will meet about Gaza on Tuesday at the request of Arab and Muslim states. The 193-member body is likely to vote on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, diplomats said.

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Sergey Lavrov: The Russian approaches to Gaza and Ukraine | Politics

The Russian foreign minister debates his country’s approaches to Gaza and Ukraine.

In a world grappling with its geopolitics being fragmented, the East versus West competition for power is seemingly threatening to divide and polarise the global order.

Russia’s ability to selectively influence leaders and events in various parts of the world is vital when discussing international crises.

On this special edition of Talk to Al Jazeera, we go to the Doha Forum 2023, where we connect with Russia’s top diplomat to discuss the war on Gaza and Ukraine and his country’s apparently contradicting stands on both conflicts.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, talks to Al Jazeera.

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WHO calls for immediate passage of humanitarian relief into Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he hopes resolution will be starting point for further UN action on crisis.

The World Health Organization has agreed on a resolution, the first by any United Nations agency, calling for immediate access to vital humanitarian aid and an end to the fighting in Gaza.

The resolution – calling for the “immediate, sustained and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief, including the access of medical personnel” – was adopted by consensus at the end of a special session of the WHO’s Executive Board on Sunday.

It also called on “all parties to fulfill their obligations under international law” and reaffirmed “that all parties to armed conflict must comply fully with the obligations applicable to them under international humanitarian law related to the protection of civilians in armed conflict and medical personnel.”

The special meeting of the executive board was only the seventh in the WHO’s 75-year history.

The passage of the resolution “underscores the importance of health as a universal priority, in all circumstances, and the role of healthcare and humanitarianism in building bridges to peace, even in the most difficult of situations,” the WHO said in a statement after the meeting.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has struggled to respond to the deepening crisis in Gaza that erupted after the Palestinian armed group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 captive.

In response, Israel declared war on Hamas and has subjected Gaza, which Hamas has controlled since 2006, to relentless attack, killing at least 18,000 people.

The UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced and faces shortages of food, water and medicine along with a growing threat of disease.

On Friday, a resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire put forward by the United Arab Emirates and co-sponsored by 100 other countries failed to pass in the UNSC after the United States vetoed the proposal. The US is one of five permanent members of the council with a veto.

The vote came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 on Wednesday to formally warn the 15-member council of a global threat from the two-month-long war.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN health agency resolution could be a starting point for further action.

“It does not resolve the crisis. But it is a platform on which to build,” he said in his closing remarks to the board.

“Without a ceasefire, there is no peace. And without peace, there is no health. I urge all Member States, especially those with the most influence, to work with urgency to bring an end to this conflict as soon as possible.”

Fighting resumed this month after a week-long pause in hostilities that allowed some Israeli and foreign captives to be released in exchange for a number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, as well as for the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

With Israel now stepping up its military actions in the south of the territory of more than 2 million people, calls for an end to the fighting have intensified.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) is expected to vote as soon as Tuesday on a resolution for an immediate ceasefire, after Egypt and Mauritania invoked Resolution 377 “Uniting for Peace” in the wake of the US veto.

Adopted by the UNGA in 1950, Resolution 377 allows the 193-member body to act where the UNSC has failed to “exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”.

Their letter also referred to Guterres’s invoking Article 99 of the UN Charter on December 6.

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