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

Israel's parliament passed a law late Monday 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 U.N. 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 Palestinians 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.

Banned UN agency vows to keep Gaza’s people ‘alive’ amid conflict

A UN official banned by Israel this week defended the agency for Palestinian refugees on Tuesday, calling it "irreplaceable" in supporting the people of war-torn Gaza through its extensive network.

For more than seven decades, UNRWA has been a vital source of aid for Palestinian refugees. However, Israeli officials' criticism of the agency has intensified, particularly following the onset of conflict in Gaza after Hamas's attacks on October 7 last year.

Fowler, who condemned the bill as “an outrage,” in an interview with AFP at the agency's East Jerusalem compound:

“UNRWA is irreplaceable, UNRWA is essential. That remains a fact, whatever legislation was passed yesterday,”

Fowler said UNRWA hopes the decision will be rescinded, and is "not in the mindset" of thinking of replacement.

Ceasefire talks

Talks led by the U.S., 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."

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 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 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.

Netanyahu says Israel not received Egypt's 2-day ceasefire proposal: office

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyaju on Monday said he had not received a proposal for a two-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that would include a hostage release, according to his office.

Netanyahu told his party that Israel "has not received a proposal for the release of four hostages in return for a 48-hour ceasefire in Gaza. If such a proposal had been raised, the prime minister would have accepted it immediately," his office said in a statement, referring to a proposal revealed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.

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 neighborhoods 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.

'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.