Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, returned home from a brief trip to Gaza last week and said the suffering that he witnessed was “almost unparalleled” and he saw “scene after scene of absolute despair,” according to The Guardian.
The Israeli Knesset on Monday easily passed legislation to ban UNRWA from any of its territory, drawing swift rebuke from the U.S. because of the role the UN agency plays in the lives of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, called on the global community to intervene as Israel carries out ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, which it says has been in “complete siege” since Israel began carrying out operations there earlier this month.
Internal emails among officials inside the Pentagon and U.S. State Department showed concerns about war crimes by the IDF in Gaza in the early stages of the war and that the rising death toll inside the enclave would hurt relations between Washington and other countries in the Middle East.
Israel’s bombing campaigns in Lebanon have largely distracted the public from its ongoing genocide in Gaza, as the death toll in the enclave hit 41,431 and the number of those injured neared 100,000. Thousands remain missing under the rubble.
Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general last week called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza a “moral stain on us all” and warned that the humanitarian support system in Gaza is about to collapse.
The U.S. announced last week that the temporary Gaza pier that was supposed to supplement some of the humanitarian aid shut down by Israel will be shut down for good after failing to live up to even its modest expectations.
“We don't have electricity or running water or Internet or phone connection or anything,” Halima Tayah, 68, told The New York Times.
Israel has called its military operation in Rafah “limited,” but recently released satellite pictures tell a different story and show a path of widespread destruction like what has been seen across the entire Strip.
Former President Donald Trump attacked U.S. President Joe Biden last week for threatening to withhold certain weapons from Israel if it invades Rafah.