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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry about efforts to increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians in urgent need, the State Department said on Thursday.
Blinken reaffirmed the importance of concrete steps to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians in all of Gaza and reaffirmed Washington’s rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians, the department said in a statement.
ROME: Famine is looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid, a UN-backed assessment said Saturday.
The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”
“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” said the alert.
On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing “catastrophic” food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report classified that as IPC Phase 5 — a situation when “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.”
Since that report, conditions have worsened in the north of Gaza, with a collapse of food systems, a drop in humanitarian aid and critical water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, the committee said.
“It can therefore be assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas,” it read.
Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault launched after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas.
Israeli forces have intensified their operations in large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north since early October, where evacuation orders are in place.
Aid shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip were now lower than at any time since October 2023, said the report.
Access to food continues to deteriorate, with prices of essentials on the black market soaring. Cooking gas rose by 2,612 percent, diesel by 1,315 percent and wood by 250 percent, it said.
“Concurrent with the extremely high and increasing prices of essential items has been the total collapse of livelihoods to be able to purchase or barter for food and other basic needs,” said the alert.
The body expressed concern over Israel’s cutting ties last month with the UN aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), warning of “extremely serious consequences for humanitarian operations” in Gaza.
GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including women and children.
An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Yunis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.
A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school,” which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.
The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.
In recent months, the military has struck several schools-turned-shelters where Israel has said Palestinian militants are operating.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its troops killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, where it has been conducting a sweeping air and ground operation for more than a month to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Israeli forces also killed several militants in the area of Rafah in the territory’s south, the military added.
The military is currently engaged in a two-front war, with troops fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
“Over the past day, the IAF (air force) struck over 50 terror targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.
“Among the targets struck were military structures, weapons storage facilities and launchers,” it added.
Israel’s war in Gaza broke out after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which included those who died and were killed in captivity.
During the attack, militants abducted 251 people, 97 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 43,508 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers to be reliable.
Nairobi: Devastating flooding in South Sudan is affecting around 1.4 million people, with more than 379,000 displaced, according to a United Nations update that warned about an upsurge in malaria.
Aid agencies have said that the world’s youngest country, highly vulnerable to climate change, is in the grip of its worst flooding in decades, mainly in the north.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 1.4 million people were affected by floods in 43 counties and the disputed Abyei region, which is claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan.
“Over 379,000 individuals are displaced in 22 counties and Abyei,” it added in a statement issued late on Friday.
A surge in malaria has been reported in several states, it said, “overwhelming the health system and exacerbating the situation and impact in flood-hit areas.”
Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the world’s youngest nation has remained plagued by chronic instability, violence and economic stagnation as well as climate disasters such as drought and floods.
The World Bank said last month that the latest floods were “worsening an already critical humanitarian situation marked by severe food insecurity, economic decline, continued conflict, disease outbreaks, and the repercussions of the Sudan conflict,” which has seen several hundred thousand people pour into South Sudan.
More than seven million people are food insecure in South Sudan and 1.65 million children are malnourished, according to the UN’s World Food Programme.
The country also faces another period of political paralysis after the president’s office announced in September yet another extension to a transitional period agreed in a 2018 peace deal, delaying elections by two years to December 2026.
Key provisions of the transitional agreement remain unfulfilled — including the creation of a constitution and the unification of the rival forces of President Salva Kiir and his foe Reik Machar.
The delay has left South Sudan’s partners and the United Nations exasperated, with UN envoy Nicholas Haysom on Thursday describing it as a “regrettable development.”
All local and international parties involved “must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last, and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve,” added Haysom.
South Sudan boasts plentiful oil resources but the vital source of revenue was decimated in February when an export pipeline was damaged in neighboring war-torn Sudan.
Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani expressed hopes during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump that he would keep his “promises to work toward ending wars” in the Middle East.
Amid Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Sudani — who was named premier by a majority bloc of Iran-backed political factions — has been in a delicate balancing act to ensure his country is not drawn into the fighting.
In the phone call, the Iraqi premier pointed to Trump’s “campaign statements and promises to work toward ending wars in the region,” a statement from Sudani’s office said late Friday.
“The two sides agreed to coordinate efforts in achieving this goal,” it added.
About 2,500 American troops are deployed in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition that was formed to help battle the Daesh group.
Bases hosting the American troops have been the target of dozens of rocket and drone attacks launched by Iran-backed groups in Iraq, which have also claimed attacks against Israel.
Baghdad has for years called on Washington to provide a clear timeline for the withdrawal of their remaining coalition troops.
The US and Iraq announced in late September that the international coalition would end its decade-long military mission in federal Iraq within a year, and by September 2026 in the autonomous Kurdistan region.
But the joint statement and US officials did not say whether any American troops would remain in Iraq.
Under Trump’s first term in office, relations deteriorated between the two countries after a US drone strike in January 2020 killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani — the chief of the Quds Force and the architect of the Islamic republic’s military operations abroad.
Also killed in that strike was Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s former paramilitary Hashed Al-Shaabi that have been integrated into the armed forces.
As part of their investigations into Muhandis’s assassination, the Iraqi judiciary issued a warrant for Trump’s arrest in January 2021.
NEW YORK: The UN high commissioner for human rights on Friday called on Israel to “fully and immediately” comply with the provisional measures issued in January by the International Court of Justice demanding action to prevent a genocide from being perpetrated against the Palestinians.
Volker Turk also called on states to honor their obligations under international law and “assess arms sales or transfers and provision of military, logistical or financial support to a party to the conflict, with a view to ending such support if this risks serious violations of international law.”
His warning comes as a new report by his office, published on Friday, warned that “if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, (Israel’s violations) may constitute genocide.”
In January, after considering an original case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, the ICJ issued a ruling that included provisional measures ordering Israel to take action to prevent and punish the commission of, or the incitement to commit, genocide; to halt the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians; and to immediately facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
Turk said Israel’s compliance with the ICJ ruling is now “even more critical and urgent” in light of the new report, which details “the horrific reality that has unfolded for the people of Israel and Gaza since 7 October 2023,” and concludes by demanding justice with respect to the grave violations of international law that have been committed.
The ICJ measures are also more pertinent than ever given the most recent events, Turk said, including Israel’s operations in northern Gaza and its adoption of legislation banning the main UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” said Turk.
The new report covers violations that occurred from November 2023 to April 2024, including the killing of civilians and breaches of international law that it said could amount to war crimes.
“If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, further to a State or organizational policy, these violations may constitute crimes against humanity,” the report says.
Turk urged support for the work of accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court, in relation to the conflict in Gaza, for the exercise of universal jurisdiction to investigate and try crimes under international law in national courts, and for compliance with extradition requests of suspects of such crimes to countries where they would receive a fair trial.
The report highlights repeated statements from Israeli officials calling for Gaza’s entire destruction and the exodus of its people.
It documents Israel’s efforts to “rationalize discrimination, hostility and violence towards, and even the elimination of, Palestinians.”
The report underscores how civilians have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial “complete siege” of Gaza, as well as Israel’s continuing “unlawful failures” to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and mass displacement of Palestinians.
“This conduct by Israeli Forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,” the reports says, adding that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have also committed serious violations of international law on a wide scale
“The rules of war, in force now for 160 years, were designed to limit and prevent human suffering in times of armed conflict,” Turk said.
“Their wanton disregard has led to the current extremes of human suffering which we continue to see today.
“It seems inconceivable that the parties to the conflict refuse to apply universally accepted and binding norms developed to preserve the very bare minimum of humanity.”
The UN Human Rights Office says close to 70 percent of fatalities in Gaza are children and women, indicating “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.”
The continuation of these attacks “demonstrates an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare selected,” the report states.
It also raises concerns over the forcible transfer of Palestinians, attacks on hospitals in “apparent systematic fashion” as well as journalists, and the reported use of white phosphorus munitions.
“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing, and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law — namely the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack,” Turk said.
“Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.
“The trends and patterns of violations, and of applicable international law as clarified by the International Court of Justice, must inform the steps to be taken to end the current crisis,” he added.
“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”
