Humanitarian system in Gaza will collapse if Unrwa is unable to operate, warns UnicefUnicef spokesperson James Elder has been answering questions from the media about last night’s vote in the Israeli parliament that would effectively ban Unrwa, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, from operating within Israel.
“If Unrwa is unable to operate, it’ll likely see the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza,” Elder was quoted by Reuters as having said. “So a decision such as this suddenly means that a new way has been found to kill children,” he added.
Other UN agencies at the media briefing said it would be impossible to fill the void left by Unrwa, the main UN organisation working on the ground in Gaza to provide emergency relief to Palestinian people.
“It is indispensable and there is no alternative to it at this point,” UN humanitarian office spokesperson Jens Laerke said, as Israel’s ongoing assault on the territory is worsening already dire conditions in which Palestinians face widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.
Palestinian children in the southern city of Khan Younis wait to receive food distributed by charitable organisations. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesIn response to a question about whether the ban represented a form of collective punishment against Palestinians, he said:
I think it is a fair description of what they have decided here, if implemented, that this would add to the acts of collective punishment that we have seen imposed on Gaza.
The head of the International Organization for Migration said IOM could not replace Unrwa in Gaza but that it could provide more relief to those in crisis.
“That is a role that we are very, very keen to play, and one that we will be stepping up with the support of various stakeholders,” IOM director general Amy Pope said.
It comes as France’s foreign ministry says it “very strongly regrets” that Israel’s parliament passed two laws that could prevent Unrwa from operating in the Palestinian territories.
“Implementation of these laws would have very serious consequences for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which is already catastrophic, but also all of the Palestinian territories,” the statement read, adding that France “reiterates its support for Unrwa and will continue to track the implementation of reforms necessary for its actions to be neutral”.
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Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins, has called on EU and UN member states to make clear their support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), urging that it is “time to stop this horror of history” after Israel’s parliament banned the agency from operating in Israeli-controlled lands.
More than 100,000 people in northern Gaza, mostly women and children, are effectively “trapped with no safe place to go to”, Higgins said in a statement on Tuesday:
Given the circumstances of people starving to death, the placing under attack of the United Nations agency that is responsible for keeping them alive constitutes an appalling failure of diplomacy and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. It is time to stop this horror of history. Palestine and Israel will ultimately have to live together in spaces adjacent to each other.
Irish taoiseach Simon Harris, also on Tuesday, said Europe needed to find the “moral courage” to act on this issue. He said:
More people will die, more children will starve, there is no alternative to Unrwa … The actions we have seen in the Knesset really are absolutely shameful.
Israel warns Iran not to retaliate against airstrikes last weekIsrael’s military chief warned Iran on Tuesday to refrain from retaliating against its airstrikes last week.
“If Iran makes the mistake of launching another missile barrage at Israel, we will once again know how to reach Iran, with capabilities that we did not even use this time,” Herzi Halevi, chief of the general staff, told air and ground crews last Saturday.
Summary of the day so far An Israeli attack on a residential building sheltering displaced civilians in northern Gaza’s town of Beit Lahiya is reported to have killed 93 people, including 20 children, according to medics. Dozens of people are reported missing and 150 others are estimated to be injured. The Israeli military is yet to comment on the deadly airstrike. Nearby Kamal Adwan hospital is struggling to treat people injured in the attack as it reportedly has run out of medical supplies and only has two paediatric doctors, with no surgeons.
The attack came a day after Israel’s parliament passed a law to ban the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) from operating inside the country, alarming many of Israel’s allies who fear it will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. The Turkish foreign ministry said earlier today that the move aimed to disrupt efforts to reach a two-state solution. Jordan’s foreign ministry said Monday’s vote was “part of the systematic targeting” of Unrwa and a “continuation of Israel’s frantic efforts to assassinate the UN agency politically, in addition to its aggressive war on the Palestinian people”.
Hezbollah said it had chosen Naim Qassem, deputy secretary general, to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as leader of the Lebanese militant group after Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on south Beirut last month.
Lebanese state media reported that Israeli tanks have rolled into the outskirts of the village of Khiam, in what is thought to be their deepest incursion yet into south Lebanon in the ground assault launched last month.
Famine is imminent in Gaza, says a report. Gaza is facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, according to the new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released on Tuesday. “People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this manmade hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” said World Food Programme (WFP) executive director Cindy McCain.
Banning Unrwa is an act of genocide, says UK Green party co-leader Carla Denyer. Responding to the ban by the Israeli government, Denyer said: “Gaza is experiencing a severe, ongoing humanitarian crisis. Banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, is an act of genocide.”
Unifil, the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, has warned Hezbollah that any deliberate attack on them “is a grave violation of international humanitarian law”, after a rocket hit its headquarters in Naqoura earlier on Tuesday.
The director of Unrwa in Gaza says it will be “impossible” to operate if Israel goes ahead with a ban on the agency.
Sam Rose, Unrwa’s Gaza deputy director, told the BBC: “There are hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in buildings under the safety of a UN flag and if that protective status of the buildings is taken away then of course we can’t in any way pretend to guarantee that safety.”
“We’re not just distributing aid or providing water – we’re running a health system, we’re running an education system,” he said.
“Other UN agencies work on policy, they work on normative issues, they provide support to member states or government. They are not in the business of running health services, or education services.”
Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s envoy to the UN, demands the Security Council protects civilians from Israel’s attacks.
“Israel has crossed every red line, broken every rule, defied every prohibition. When is enough really enough? When are you going to act? You are the Security Council. You have to reach every single one who is in pain among the Palestinians. That is your duty,” the envoy said at a council meeting.
Mansour says people in Gaza have been “enduring unspeakable pain,” and called on the council to stop “this genocide or forever remain silent”.
Peter Beaumont
Israel’s recent offensive in northern Gaza has killed more than 700 people in a little over three weeks, with nearly 300 of those deaths, mainly in the north, occurring in the past nine days alone. While it has attempted to justify its renewed focus on the north by claiming it is targeting regrouped Hamas fighters, the intensity of the fighting has caused heavy losses among the 100,000 civilians still living there. Many of them are families who, exhausted by Israel’s multiple forced displacement orders, have chosen to stay in the north…
The UK’s Middle East minister says the vote in Israel’s parliament on Unrwa “clearly jeopardises the entire international humanitarian response in Gaza”.
Speaking to the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme, Hamish Falconer says the UK would “press on the Israelis to change the approach” and “do everything we can both publicly and privately”.
Falconer says the UK does not “accept the premise that Unrwa is broken and needs to be replaced”.
Hezbollah appoints Naim Qassem as its new leaderQassem replaces the late Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general of the Lebanese militant group.
An Israeli strike killed Nasrallah in Beirut in late September.
In a statement, Hezbollah said Qassem was elected to take up the position due to his “adherence to the principles and goals of Hezbollah”.
It added that the group would “[ask] God Almighty to guide him in this noble mission in leading Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance”.
Famine is imminent in Gaza, says reportGaza is facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, according to the new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released on Tuesday.
In Gaza’s two northern governorates, where about 300,000 people remain trapped, famine is expected to arrive between now and May.
The new report found that around half the population of Gaza have run out of food and face starvation.
“People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” said World Food Programme (WFP) executive director Cindy McCain.
“There is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it’s too late. Thousands more will be dead.”
The WFP estimates that feeding people will require allowing at least 300 trucks to enter Gaza every day, but WFP has only taken nine convoys to the north since the start of the year.
Sending aid to Gaza requires clearance from Israel every day. Consequently, long waits can occur at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, and truck convoys face looting and are frequently turned back; even if they do get through, looting remains a high risk.
“WFP and our partners have food supplies ready, at the border and in the region, to feed all 2.2 million people across Gaza – but moving food into and within Gaza is like trying to navigate a maze, with obstacles at every turn,” said WFP Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Carl Skau.
“The complicated border controls, combined with the high tensions and desperation inside Gaza, make it nearly impossible for food supplies to reach people in need, particularly in the north. But the delivery of 18 trucks of food on Sunday shows that it can be done. This cannot be a one-off, but this needs to be sustained, regular and at scale to support those in need.”
Palestinian children await food distribution in Khan Younis on 28 October. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesBanning Unrwa is an act of genocide, says UK Green party co-leader Carla Denyer.
Responding to the ban by the Israeli government, co-leader of the Green party, Carla Denyer, said:
Gaza is experiencing a severe, ongoing humanitarian crisis. Banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, is an act of genocide.
Rather than wringing their hands over this criminal decision by the Israeli government, it is time for the UK and the international community to act. We must see the suspension of arms sales to Israel, and the introduction of divestments, boycotts, sanctions and prosecutions for all those on all sides of the escalating conflict in the Middle East who have committed war crimes.
The co-leader of the Green party, Carla Denyer, speaks during a rally in Whitehall, central London, on 11 September. Photograph: Lucy North/PAUnifil, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, warns Hezbollah that any deliberate attack on them “is a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” after a rocket hit its headquarters in Naqoura earlier on Tuesday.
On a post on X, Unfil said the “rocket was fired from north of UNIFIL’s headquarters, likely by Hizbullah or an affiliated group. We have opened an investigation into the incident.”
Statement:
This afternoon a rocket hit UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura, setting a vehicle workshop on fire. Peacekeepers were not in bunkers at the time. While some peacekeepers suffered minor injuries, fortunately no one was seriously injured. pic.twitter.com/MuJ1sOEnQR
— UNIFIL (@UNIFIL_) October 29, 2024Qatar says it will work with US President Joe Biden “until the last minute” to reach a ceasefire deal.
“We don’t foresee any negative result of the elections on the mediation process itself,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told a press conference.
“We believe that we are dealing with institutions and in a country like the United States, the institutions are invested in finding a resolution to this crisis.”
Qatar, along with the US and Egypt, continues to mediate negotiations between Israel and Gaza for a deal to end the war.
Unifil, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, has said that a rocket that hit its headquarters in Naqoura earlier was fired from the north, likely by Hezbollah or an affiliated group (see post at 14.37 for more details on the attack).
Israel’s decision to ban Unrwa will have ‘devastating consequences’, WHO chief warnsThe head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has condemned Israel’s decision to pass a law banning the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, from operating in the country.
In a post on X, he said Unrwa, which provides education, health care and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, has been an “irreplaceable lifeline” to Palestinians in Gaza for the last 70 years.
The WHO chief said the decision by the Israeli parliament to ban Unrwa was “intolerable” and will have “devastating consequences”.
“It contravenes Israel’s obligations and responsibilities, and threatens the lives and health of all those who depend on Unrwa,” he said.
.@UNRWA is an irreplaceable lifeline to the Palestinian people. And it has been for the past seven decades.
UNRWA was created by the @UN Member States. Today’s decision by the Israeli parliament barring UNRWA from its life-saving and health-protecting work on behalf of millions… pic.twitter.com/mWVwln63d9
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 28, 2024Unrwa said the new laws – due to come into effect within three months – will cause the supply chain of aid to Gaza to “fall apart”, excepting an already dire humanitarian crisis.
Rocket attack injures 8 Austrian Unifil soldiers in southern Lebanon – defence ministryA rocket attack has injured eight Austrian soldiers with a UN peacekeeping contingent in southern Lebanon, the Austrian defence ministry said.
“Eight Austrian army soldiers from the Unifil contingent (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) were injured today at 12:58 pm (1058 GMT) by a rocket hit in camp Naqoura; none of them seriously,” the statement said, adding the injuries were “minor and superficial”.
The Austrian defence ministry condemned the attack and adding it was “currently not possible to say where the attack came from”.
Unifil, the UN force deployed since 1978 to southern Lebanon, was established to patrol the country’s southern frontier after Israel invaded in 1978.
The UN’s top decision-making body, the security council, has since renewed and expanded its mandate repeatedly, notably during Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000.
Earlier this month, Unifil accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of deliberate violations, with several of its positions having come under fire. You can read more about Unifil’s peacekeeping role in this useful explainer.
Israeli forces have detained at least 15 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank over the last day, according to a joint statement by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
The detentions were reported by Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, as having occurred across various areas, including Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Nablus and Tubas.
It is estimated that over 11,500 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.
They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
Israel has issued an apparent threat to Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem as he succeeds Hassan Nasrallah – the former leader who was killed by an Israeli strike. Alongside a photo of Qassem, the country’s defence minister Yoav Gallant as tweeted:
Temporary appointment. Not for long.
Reuters reports that Qassem was appointed Hezbollah’s deputy chief in 1991 by the then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.
Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media; including while cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.
Since Nasrallah’s killing, Qassem has given three televised addresses, including one on 8 October, in which he said the armed group supported efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon. He is considered by many in Lebanon to lack the charisma and gravitas of Nasrallah.
In its official Arabic account on Twitter, the Israeli government says:
His tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine.
There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organization as a military force.
Spain’s interior ministry says it is cancelling a contract to buy ammunition from an Israeli firm, widening a Spanish pledge not to sell weapons to Israel to include purchases too, Reuters reports.
Cadena Ser radio earlier reported that the Guardia Civil police force agreed to buy more than 15m 9mm rounds for €6m (£4.98m, $6.48m) from Guardian LTD Israel. Spain said it would stop arms sales to Israel in October 2023 – when Israel’s war with Hamas started in Gaza. Ministers now say:
The Spanish government maintains the commitment not to sell weapons to the Israeli state since the armed conflict broke out in the territory of Gaza. Although, in this case, it is an acquisition of ammunition, the Interior Ministry has initiated the administrative procedure to cancel the purchase.
The ministry said Israeli companies would also be excluded from any outstanding tenders. The contract was tendered in February and awarded on 21 October; with two of the three lots awarded to an Israeli company, it added.
Spain has been one of the European Union’s harshest critics of Israel’s campaign in Gaza and, more recently, in south Lebanon.