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The head of the United Nations called, on Sunday January 28, on donor countries to guarantee the continuation of activities carried out in favor of civilians in Gaza by the Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), weakened by the suspected involvement of employees in the Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023. France announced that it was not planning “new payment” until July.
On the ground in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army described “intense fighting” in Khan Younes, the large city in the south of the Palestinian territory, now the epicenter of the war, specifying that he had killed “terrorists and seized large quantities of weapons”. At least twenty-four people were killed during the day in this large southern city, relentlessly shelled by Israeli aircraft, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, administered by Hamas.
In New York, Antonio Guterres called on donor countries that have suspended their funding to UNRWA to “at least guarantee” the continuation of its operations in the besieged territory, where humanitarian aid is trickling in. “Two million civilians in Gaza depend on crucial aid [de l’agence onusienne] for their daily survival, but current UNRWA funding will not allow it to meet all needs in February”he insisted.
UN calls to guarantee UNRWA activities in Gaza, where fighting continues
THE “extremely serious charges” against UNRWA employees are the subject of an internal investigation, recalled Mr. Guterres. Nine were fired, one is “confirmed dead”and the identities of two others are “being clarified”he clarified. “The alleged despicable actions of these employees must have consequences,” but should not penalize “the tens of thousands of men and women who work” for the agency, he stressed. Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, accused him of choosing to ignore ” the evidence “ of UNRWA’s involvement in “incitement and terrorism”.
“If the help [de l’UNRWA] is suspended, there will be a famine. They are the ones who give us flour, food and drink.”, declared to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Bassam Al-Masri, a resident of the northern Gaza Strip, taking refuge in Rafah, in the far south of the territory. More than 1.3 million displaced Gazans, according to the UN, are massed there against the closed border with Egypt to flee the fighting further north, which is concentrated around Khan Younes.
In this city, considered by Israel to be a stronghold of Hamas, the clashes particularly took place around the Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals. Around 350 patients and 5,000 displaced people were at Nasser hospital on Saturday, “running out of fuel, [de] food and [de] supplies “, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, surgical operations are suspended at Al-Amal hospital due to lack of oxygen.
Discussions in Paris on a truce in Gaza
In the hope of obtaining a truce and the release of hostages still captive in Gaza, William Burns, the director of the CIA, met in Paris with senior Israeli and Egyptian officials, as well as the Qatari prime minister, according to close sources of the participants in these meetings, to the AFP. Qatar, Egypt and the United States had already been involved in negotiating the first truce at the end of November, during which around a hundred of the approximately 250 people kidnapped in Israel during the attack of October 7, 2023 were released, in exchange of Palestinian prisoners.
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The meeting in Paris between senior American, Egyptian, Qatari and Israeli officials on a ceasefire in Gaza was “constructive”announced the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, specifying that it remained “always disagreements” between the parties. The heads of Mossad (foreign intelligence services) and Shin Bet (domestic intelligence services) were present for Israel, according to the statement. The protagonists “will continue to discuss this week in other meetings”added the text.
According to Israeli authorities, 104 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip, and 28 are presumed dead. THE New York Times mentioned, on Saturday, a draft agreement which would involve a two-month truce and the release of more than a hundred hostages.
Crossing point closed in Gaza after protests
On Sunday morning, Israelis demanding the release of the hostages demonstrated at the Kerem Shalom crossing point, near Rafah, turning back humanitarian aid trucks towards the Palestinian territory. According to them, the entry of this aid fuels the continuation of the conflict. The day before, several thousand people across the country demonstrated to demand the return of the hostages and the resignation of the government in view of new elections.
“About 200 demonstrators” gathered around the Kerem Shalom crossing point, according to Cogat, an organ of the Israeli Ministry of Defense which coordinates the civilian activities of the army in the occupied Palestinian territories. “From humanitarian for humanitarian”, chanted the demonstrators, who want aid not to reach Gaza until the hostages are freed. Some demonstrators have relatives still held hostage, according to the testimony of one of them to AFP.
Only two border crossings allow the delivery of aid in the Gaza Strip, that of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, and that of Kerem Shalom, in the south of Israel.