Casualties after Israeli air strike hits a house in Rafah
The Israeli military has been ramping up its bombardment of areas across Rafah in southern Gaza as it continues to promise a ground invasion soon. The footage below, verified by our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, shows the aftermath of one of the strikes earlier today, which left multiple Palestinians dead and injured.
Israel continues to ‘deny humanitarian access to UN’: Lazzarini
The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) says Israeli authorities continue to deny humanitarian access to Gaza.
Philippe Lazzarini himself was denied access to the besieged enclave for the second time this week, he said, also reporting “an increase in the denial of humanitarian access and attacks on humanitarian workers and convoys”.
“Only in the past 2 weeks, we have recorded 10 incidents involving shooting at convoys, arrests of UN staff including bullying, stripping them naked, threats with arms & long delays at checkpoints forcing convoys to move during the dark or abort,” Lazzarini said on X.
UNRWA schools used as shelters amid Gaza education shutdown
About 300,000 children in Gaza used to receive their education in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Some of those schools have now been fully destroyed or damaged by Israeli military attacks. Most others have to be used as emergency shelters.
“Education abruptly stopped and children’s sense of safety shattered – depriving deeply traumatized children of any hope for a better future,” the agency says.
Israeli military claims attack on UNRWA facility ‘used by Hamas’
The Israeli military says it worked with Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet to attack a facility belonging to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) that it claims was being used by Hamas.
It said the facility was located in central Gaza, and was being used as a “command and control centre” in order to launch attacks on Israeli soldiers in recent weeks. The Israeli military claimed its assault was carried out in a way to “avoid as much harm as possible” to people not involved with Hamas activities.
Israel has consistently claimed that UN facilities are being used by Hamas, and has used this as justification to strike dozens of schools and other UNRWA facilities, but the United Nations rejects the claims.
Islamic Cooperation denounces Israel’s ‘genocidal war’ on Gaza: Report
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has called on its members to impose “sanctions on Israel, the occupying power, and halting the export of weapons and ammunition used by its army to perpetrate the crime of genocide in Gaza”.
The resolution, seen by AFP news agency, urged members “to exercise diplomatic, political and legal pressure and to take any deterrent measures to stop the crimes of the Israeli colonial occupation, and the genocidal war it is waging against the Palestinian people, including by imposing sanctions”.
It also called for “an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire”.
In November 2023, it met with the Arab League in Riyadh for a joint summit, condemning the actions of Israeli forces in Gaza, but refraining from setting out punitive economic and political measures against Israel.
Essay Pro