Israel-Hamas war: Israeli Parliament bans UNRWA amid Gaza fighting, ceasefire talks resume

Israel’s Parliament passed a law on 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.

The Knesset members who drafted the law cited the involvement of a handful of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees’ thousands of staffers in the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and a few staffers’ membership in Hamas and other armed groups.

The vote came the same day Israeli tanks thrust deeper into two north Gaza towns and a refugee camp, trapping about 100,000 civilians, the Palestinian emergency service said, in what Israel’s military said were operations to eliminate regrouping Hamas terrorists.

The Israeli military said soldiers captured around 100 suspected Hamas terrorists in a raid into Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Jabalia camp. Hamas and medics have denied any terror 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 RESUMED

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

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said mediators would resume talks in coming days “in a continued attempt to advance a deal”, without elaborating.

Israel has repeatedly said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated, while the group 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 carrying out bombings across Lebanon and sending forces into its south in an offensive to disable Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

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

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tehran would “use all available tools” to respond to Israel’s weekend attack.

‘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 2,710 people and injured 12,592 others in the past year.

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

Israel said it bombed Hezbollah anti-tank missile depots and other arms assets in Tyre for the second time in several days.

Footage circulated online of civil defence workers driving through Tyre 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 along the border in ruins.

Hezbollah carried out a string of attacks on Israeli troops within Lebanese territory and on military targets within Israel. It said it had struck a military equipment factory southeast of Acre, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.

‘NONSENSE TALK OF CEASEFIRE’

North Gaza’s three major hospitals, whose officials refused Israel’s orders to evacuate, said they were hardly operating. At least two were damaged by Israeli fire and run out of medical, food and fuel stocks.

At least one doctor, a nurse and two child patients had died in those hospitals due to a lack of treatment in the past week.

North Gaza residents said Israeli forces were besieging schools and other 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 flattening towns.

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

Hamas’s 2023 attack killed 1,200 people and resulted in more than 250 hostages being taken into Gaza, as per 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.