The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) says that two additional members of staff have been killed by Israeli air strikes against the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll since October 7 to 101. This is the highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations. Meanwhile, intense bombardments and shelling continue across the Gaza Strip, including in central and southern areas, killing hundreds of civilians every day; the majority of them are children and women.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that Palestinians in northern Gaza are experiencing extreme suffering as the Israeli siege of the area continues. OCHA says there are harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction in the north. Meanwhile, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) describe apocalyptic scenes as atrocities against civilians and attacks on hospitals intensify.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip is the worst it has been since the war began in October 2023. Atrocities continue on a massive scale, and the limited amount of aid entering Gaza falls far short of what is needed to support the more than two million starving civilians following 80 days of a total Israeli blockade of all commercial and humanitarian supplies.
A local "humanitarian pause" allowed the launch of the emergency polio immunization campaign, with nearly 87,000 children vaccinated in central Gaza on the first day of the campaign on Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of young Palestinian children are on track to be vaccinated. Despite this, Israeli air and land bombardment continues throughout the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian deaths, injuries, maiming, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
After an 11-week total blockade of humanitarian and commercial goods into the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities have temporarily allowed the resumption of limited aid deliveries since Monday. While the entry of some trucks has been welcomed as a positive development, as of Wednesday night none of the supplies had reached those in need, amid extreme deprivation throughout the territory.
Israel's attacks on and around hospitals, and the ensuing fighting, have pushed health care in the Gaza Strip to the brink of total collapse, the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) says. The attacks and actions aimed at destroying the health system in Gaza are in flagrant disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law, many of which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — the world’s leading authority on acute food security — says that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where access to food and other essential goods and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels. An IPC alert published Tuesday highlights that two out of three famine thresholds have been exceeded in parts of the territory.
World Health Organization (WHO) officials warn a humanitarian and health catastrophe is unfolding in the Gaza Strip as the humanitarian space for providing life-saving treatment and aid is shrinking. With no let-up in fighting across Gaza, the UN health agency pleaded on Tuesday for better access across the enclave, where aid deliveries are arriving “too little...too late”. The warning and the appeal come as 1 percent of the Gaza population has been killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in just three months.
According to estimates, more than 14,500 children have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) since October 2023, when Israel began its war in the Gaza Strip, which is characterized by grave war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross violations of international humanitarian law. The real number of child fatalities is feared to be much higher, as thousands of children are reported missing and presumed dead.
Since the resumption of hostilities in Gaza on December 1, hundreds of Palestinians – mostly children and women - have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in addition to the 15,500 already killed since October 7. Meanwhile, Israeli military operations have expanded into southern Gaza, forcing tens of thousands into increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Friday that Israel must immediately halt its military offensive in the Rafah Governorate of the Gaza Strip and keep open the Rafah border crossing for the unimpeded delivery of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid at scale. The new interim measures come as the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the bombed and besieged Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate, with extremely limited aid reaching the besieged enclave.
More than 1.9 million people displaced throughout the Gaza Strip - 90 percent of the population - continue to face harrowing conditions, according to the United Nations, as Israeli evacuation orders continue and Israeli air, land and naval bombardment is reported throughout much of the Gaza Strip, causing further civilian deaths, displacement and destruction of homes and other civilian infrastructure.
Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas have reached a ceasefire that will end Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and lead to the release of some hostages held by the militant group for more than a year, mediators and officials said on Wednesday. The ceasefire will reportedly take effect on this Sunday, January 19, and will last at least 42 days. US officials say the deal will stop the fighting in Gaza and allow much-needed humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian civilians.
As the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip further unfolds and hundreds of civilians are killed daily by Israeli airstrikes, the United Nations has urged the Israeli government to cease its collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza, emphasizing that collective punishment is a war crime. A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) demanded Friday that the “use of dehumanizing language against Palestinians must also be halted.”
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Following the Israeli government's announcement on Tuesday to suspend the operations of leading international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Gaza Strip, UN agencies and over 200 international and local NGOs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) called on the authorities to reconsider this decision. The aid agencies stressed that international NGOs play a critical role in delivering life-saving assistance and that suspending them would severely undermine the humanitarian response.
As Israel's war on Gaza continues, the United States on Wednesday vetoed the latest resolution on the Gaza Strip in the United Nations Security Council, which demanded an immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire as well as full humanitarian access for civilians. The most recent veto comes in the face of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe raging for more than a year in the territory, where people continue to die from violence, disease and starvation, with the threat of famine looming.
More than ten months into the Gaza war, civilians are crammed into an ever-shrinking space without adequate access to water, food, sanitation or health care. They are repeatedly uprooted by evacuation orders, which also disrupt the aid centers that are supposed to assist them. More than 88 percent of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or declared a "no-go zone" by Israeli security forces, confining up to 1.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs) to about 11 percent of the tiny territory.
Israel's total blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza entered its tenth consecutive day on Tuesday. This gross violation of international humanitarian law and blatant war crime threatens the lives of more than two million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. On Monday, Israel cut power to a desalination plant for drinking water in Gaza, depriving civilians of water essential to their survival.
The "carnage" in the Gaza Strip has left more than 30,000 dead and must end immediately, United Nations human rights chief Volker TĂĽrk told the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday, after nearly five months of continuous Israeli bombardment and mass displacement in the enclave. Meanwhile, Israel, which has the duty and legal obligation to ensure the provision of food and goods to the people of Gaza, continues to fail to provide or even facilitate the delivery of essential supplies for the survival of some 2.3 million people living in Gaza.
