Israel votes to ban UN aid agency, Palestinians say 100,000 residents trapped

JERUSALEM/CAIRO — Israel's parliament passed a law on Monday (Oct 28) to ban the UN relief agency UNRWA from operating inside the country, alarming some of Israel's Western allies who fear it will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees' thousands of staffers in the Oct 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and a few staffers' membership in Hamas and other armed groups.

"UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said the vote opposes the UN charter and violates international law. "This is the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role towards providing human-development assistance and services to #Palestine Refugees," he wrote on social media platform X.

The vote came the same day Israeli tanks thrust deeper into northern Gaza, trapping 100,000 civilians, the Palestinian emergency service said, in what Israel's military said were operations to eliminate regrouping Hamas militants.

The Israeli military said soldiers captured around 100 suspected militants in a raid on a hospital in the Jabalia camp. Hamas and medics have denied any militant presence at the hospital.

The Gaza Strip's health ministry said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on Monday.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.

The emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza, where Israel had said it wiped out Hamas combat forces earlier in the year-long war.

Ceasefire talks

Talks led by the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire resumed on Sunday after multiple abortive attempts. Egypt's president proposed a two-day truce to exchange four Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, followed by talks within 10 days on a permanent ceasefire.

Netanyahu had said mediators would resume talks in coming days "in a continued attempt to advance a deal."

Israel has repeatedly said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated while the Islamist movement has ruled out any end to fighting until Israeli forces leave Gaza.

Gaza's war has kindled wider conflict in the Middle East, raising concern about global oil supplies, with Israel bombing Lebanon and sending forces into its south to disable Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

At least 16 people were killed in Israeli strikes on three villages in eastern Lebanon's city of Baalbek, the Lebanese health ministry said on Monday.

The conflict also triggered rare direct clashes between regional arch-foes Israel and Iran. Israeli warplanes pounded Iranian missile production sites during the weekend in retaliation for an Oct 1 Iranian missile volley at Israel.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said Tehran would "use all available tools" to respond.

'Evacuate immediately'

Israel continued battering Lebanon on Monday, including an early-morning airstrike on a district in the southern port of Tyre that left seven dead, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Lebanon's health authority said Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2,710 people and injured 12,592 others in the past year.

The Israeli military later issued an evacuation order for much of Tyre, including areas that included neighbourhoods near a seaside hotel where journalists are usually based.

Footage circulated online of civil defence workers urging people to leave. "For your safety, because of the warning, evacuate immediately!" one shouted into a megaphone attached to a car.

Israel's expanding evacuation warnings have made ghost towns out of much of southern Lebanon, including Tyre, and the bombing campaign has left many towns in ruins.

Hezbollah carried out attacks on Israeli troops within Lebanese territory and on military targets within Israel.

'Nonsense talk' of ceasefire

North Gaza's three major hospitals, whose officials refused Israel's orders to evacuate, were hardly operating. At least two were damaged and had run out of medical, food and fuel stocks. At least one doctor, a nurse and two child patients had died.

North Gaza residents said Israel was besieging shelters housing displaced families, ordering them out before rounding up men and pushing women and children to leave.

Only a few families headed toward southern Gaza as the majority preferred to relocate temporarily in Gaza City, fearing they could otherwise never regain access to their homes.

Some said they had written their death notices.

"While the world is busy with Lebanon and new nonsense talk about a few days of ceasefire (in Gaza), the Israeli occupation is wiping out north Gaza and displacing its people," a resident of Jabalia told Reuters via a chat app.

The Israeli military says its forces operate in keeping with international law and accuses militants of hiding fighters and weapons in hospitals and schools, which Hamas denies.

The north was the first part of Gaza hammered by Israel's ground offensive after Hamas' cross-border attack on Oct 7, 2023. Intensive bombing largely flattened towns.

Nevertheless, Hamas-led militants continue to attack Israeli forces in hit-and-run operations.

Hamas' 2023 attack killed 1,200 people and resulted in more than 250 hostages being taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The death toll from Israel's retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has reached 43,020, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.

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