UN chief warns that Israel’s Rafah invasion will put ‘the final nail in the coffin’ of aid operations

The United Nations chief warned on Monday that an incursion into Rafah in Gaza’s far south would be the “final nail in the coffin” for the aid operation after Israel said its forces were ready to evacuate civilians from the crowded city.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Rafah, where some 1.4 million Palestinians have sought asylum near the Egyptian border, was also “the centerpiece of humanitarian aid operations” in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been fighting Hamas for nearly five months. . .

With tensions high in the region, Israel launched its first strike into eastern Lebanon since the start of the Gaza war, killing two Hezbollah militants far from Lebanon’s southern border.

Amid political shock, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepts PM’s resignation government of mohammed shtayyeh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

A presidential decree said the government will continue in interim roles until a new government is formed.

Shtaye cited the “new reality” in Gaza and the “escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” which have seen a surge in deadly violence since an October 7 attack by Palestinian groups in southern Israel and the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel’s top ally, Washington, and other powers discussing post-war Gaza have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of the West Bank and Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007.

Shtayeh urged Palestinians to reach consensus after years of division and “extend the authority’s rule to the entire Palestinian land.”

Fierce fighting in Gaza StripThe Israeli military said troops had discovered a network of tunnels about 10 kilometers (six miles) from central Gaza to Zeitun in the north that contained weapons storage facilities “as well as the bodies of terrorists left in the tunnels.”

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Israel of further restricting aid in defiance of the UN Supreme Court’s order.

The International Court of Justice ruled a month ago that Israel must prevent acts of genocide and take “immediate and effective measures” to provide aid. But UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency for the Palestinians, said humanitarian aid entering Gaza in February was cut by half from the previous month.

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said “the Israeli government is letting Gaza’s 2.4 million Palestinians starve” and “completely ignores the court’s ruling.”

The Jordanian army said it carried out a series of humanitarian aid airdrops, sending “relief and food… to alleviate the suffering of the people in the Gaza Strip”.

According to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled region, Israeli military operations have killed at least 29,782 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.

The Hamas attacks that sparked the war killed about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

According to Israel, Hamas has also taken approximately 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza and 31 of whom are presumed dead.

Mediators continue to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release deal, which they hope will be in place before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in about two weeks.

israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu It was stressed on Sunday that the army would launch a ground offensive in Rafah to achieve a “total victory” against Hamas.

He said any truce would delay, not prevent, action.

Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that the military had indicated israel war cabinet Plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah.

But details about where these displaced people can go have not yet been released. Aid officials and Gazans themselves say no place is safe.

Even before any ground invasion, Palestinians were dying in Rafah. Displaced Gaza Sharif Muammar said his son’s body had been pulled from the rubble after the attack on the city.

“There are no people here, just children,” he told AFP.

Foreign governments and aid groups issued dire warnings that a Rafah invasion would cause mass casualties and a humanitarian disaster

Guterres warned that “Israel’s full-scale attack on the city will not only frighten the more than one million Palestinian civilians who have taken refuge there; it will also drive the final nail in the coffin of our aid program.”

He said, “Nothing can justify Hamas’ deliberate killing, injury, torture and kidnapping of civilians” and “Nothing can justify collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

With most aid trucks blocked, desperate families in northern Gaza are searching for food, with many eating animal feed and even leaves.

“We have no food or drink for ourselves or our children,” Omar Karout told AFP near Gaza City.

As mediation continues, media reports say the warring parties are considering a six-week halt to fighting and an initial exchange of dozens of hostages for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel.

“The direction is positive,” an Israeli official told news website Ynet on condition of anonymity.

The French president said Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who hosted the Hamas leader and helped facilitate a week-long campaign in November, will arrive in Paris this week. truce.

Qatar’s official news agency said Sheikh Tamim met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha to discuss negotiations.

Israel has been engaged in almost daily cross-border fighting with Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hamas ally, since early October.

Israel launched a rare far-from-the-border attack on Monday near the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek that killed two Hezbollah members, security sources told AFP.

Israel confirmed the attack and said it had targeted a Hezbollah “air defense” site after a missile downed an Israeli drone.

The group said Hezbollah responded by firing 60 rockets at Israeli military bases.

A third Hezbollah fighter was killed late Monday, the group said, with the Israeli army saying the man in an attack in southern Lebanon “directed recent terrorist activities against Israel.”

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