Probably nothing but virtue signalling

UN chief warns he could refer Israel to ICJ over laws targetting UNRWA

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could take his country to the International Court of Justice if it does not repeal laws targeting the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and return its seized assets and property.

In a January 8 letter to Netanyahu, Guterres said the UN cannot remain indifferent to “actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.”

Israel’s parliament passed a law in October 2024 banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and prohibiting Israeli officials from having contact with the agency. It then amended the law last month to ban electricity or water to UNRWA facilities.

Israeli authorities also seized UNRWA’s occupied East Jerusalem offices last month. The UN considers East Jerusalem occupied by Israel. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be part of the country.

Guterres said that UNRWA is “an integral part of the United Nations”, and highlighted that “Israel remains under an obligation to accord UNRWA and its personnel the privileges and immunities specified in the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN”.

The convention states that “the premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable”.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, dismissed Guterres’s letter to Netanyahu.

“We are not fazed by the Secretary-General’s threats,” Danon said in a post on X on Tuesday. “Instead of dealing with the undeniable involvement of UNRWA personnel in terrorism, the Secretary-General chooses to threaten Israel. This is not defending international law, this is defending an organization marred by terrorism,” he added.

The UN Secretary-General is trying to intimidate Israel. In a letter he sent to Prime Minister Netanyahu, he threatened to file a complaint with the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the State of Israel.

Instead of addressing the serious issue of UNRWA… pic.twitter.com/MmhYfDBJcO

— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) January 13, 2026

The UN has also promised to investigate all accusations made against UNRWA, and has repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided.

According to a January 5 UN report, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 382 UNRWA employees in the enclave, which is the highest number of UN casualties since the world body was founded in 1945. Some have been killed in Israel’s deliberate, repeated attacks on UNRWA hospitals and schools, which shelter more than one million displaced Palestinians in Gaza.

Top UN officials and the UN Security Council have described UNRWA as the backbone of the aid response in Gaza, where Israel’s war has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe.

In October 2025, the ICJ reiterated Israel’s obligation to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the UN, including UNRWA and its personnel, and said Israel should ensure the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met. The ICJ opinion was requested by the 193-member UN General Assembly.

Guterres is useless, no spine. He hasn't followed through on anything about Gaza.

At least 6 die in Gaza collapsed buildings, more deaths from extreme cold

At least six people were killed after heavy rain flooded tents and collapsed homes sheltering displaced families in Gaza.

Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since October 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

The people who died in Tuesday’s stormy conditions include two women, a girl and a man, according to al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received their bodies.

There were also reports of several other deaths of children and the elderly due to the cold weather. The Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight. Two other children had died on Monday night due to the freezing conditions and inadequate shelter, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it exchanged fire on Tuesday with six people spotted near its troops deployed in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them in western Rafah.

Tents blown away, damaged

On Tuesday, hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were also blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported.

Three members of the same family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 8-metre (26-foot) high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area along the Mediterranean shore of Gaza City, al-Shifa Hospital said. At least five others were injured.

Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors. “The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda told the Associated Press after the funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”

A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.

Civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal warned of catastrophic repercussions from the storm for Gaza’s population, the majority of whom have been left without adequate shelter as a result of Israel’s war and its ongoing restrictions on goods entering the territory.

Surge of hospital patients

A civil defence spokesperson said hospitals across the territory were also observing an influx of patients, particularly children, with cold-related illnesses, and the organisation had received hundreds of calls for support due to extreme cold. He said shelters had been damaged by the storm and were no longer fit for use, while other tents were being blown away completely by strong winds in western Gaza City.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the situation was the worst it had been since the winter storms began. He said about 10,000 families on Gaza’s coast were exposed to danger and further displacement as a result of the storm.

Shawa said Israel’s restrictions on goods entering the Strip were preventing access to much-needed shelter and medical supplies and hampering the work of aid organisations, endangering Gaza’s hard-hit population.

Gaza’s forcibly disappeared must not be forgotten

It has been three months since the “ceasefire” took hold in Gaza. In this time, Israel has predictably refused to comply with its obligations under the deal. It continues to block the negotiated amounts of aid into the Strip. Adequate food, medicine and temporary shelters are not reaching us. The Rafah crossing remains closed and those needing urgent medical evacuations still cannot leave.

Israel also continues to bomb us, killing more than 400 people since October 10. The Israeli army continues to demolish Palestinian homes beyond the so-called yellow line, laying waste to whole neighbourhoods.

Meanwhile, there is ongoing mediation to push the ceasefire into phase two, where the army would withdraw and reconstruction would begin. While these efforts offer some hope that the situation in Gaza may improve, there is one important issue that they are failing to address: The fate of the Palestinians who remain in Israeli captivity.

After Israel received all its captives, except for the body of a deceased one, there has been no talk of the continuous suffering of Palestinians who were forcibly disappeared from Gaza by the Israeli army. There are at least 1,800 Palestinians from Gaza who remain detained; that is in addition to more than 8,000 others who have been kidnapped from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

‘Alive or dead?’: Gaza families trapped in information void about relatives

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/13/alive-or-dead-gaza-families-trapped-in-information-void-about-relatives


_{Israeli soldiers stand beside a truck in Gaza transporting Palestinian detainees, including one who appears to be a woman, December 8, 2023}

For thousands of Palestinian families in Gaza, the ongoing Israeli genocidal war is not just about the huge loss of life, utter destruction and relentless bombardment, but the agonising silence of missing loved ones swallowed by Israel’s detention system.

“We do not know if he is detained or a martyr,” the wife of Abdul Rahman, a young man who disappeared in January, told Al Jazeera. “We filled out many forms … but hope still exists.”

This psychological limbo was highlighted this week by the case of Hamza Adwan, a 67-year-old detainee whose family was informed of his death on Sunday – four months after he actually died in custody on September 9, 2025.

Adwan, a father of nine who had already lost two sons before the war, was arrested at a checkpoint on November 12, 2024. According to his family, he was detained despite suffering from serious health issues, including heart disease, and requiring constant medical care.

The delayed notification of his death is not an isolated incident. It reflects a systematic policy of “enforced disappearance” – creating a total void of information that the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society describe as an integral part of the ongoing “war of genocide”.

Palestinian detainee from Gaza dies in Israeli custody, death toll rises to 87: Rights groups

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260113-palestinian-detainee-from-gaza-dies-in-israeli-custody-death-toll-rises-to-87-rights-groups/

In a joint statement, the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said that Hamza Abdullah Abdulhadi Adwan, 67, died in Israeli detention on 9^th September 2025.

Adwan, who suffered from chronic heart disease and required continuous medical care, was detained on 12^th November 2024, at a military checkpoint in northern Gaza, the statement said.

The institutions said Adwan was married and a father of nine children, two of whom were killed before the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.

They said his death comes amid what they described as systematic abuses against Palestinian detainees, including torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual assault, humiliation and detention under degrading conditions.

According to the statement, more than 100 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the war on Gaza, but Israeli authorities have officially disclosed the identities of only 87 of them. The remaining cases, the institutions said, remain subject to enforced disappearance, alongside dozens of detainees who were executed in the field.

The Commission and the Prisoner’s Society released alarming new statistics illustrating the scale of the crackdown. As of January 2026, the total number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons has surpassed 9,300.

Most are legally in limbo, including:

• 3,385 administrative detainees, held indefinitely on secret evidence without trial.
• 1,237 detainees classified as “unlawful combatants”, a designation Israel uses to hold Palestinians from Gaza without granting them prisoner-of-war status or legal rights.

With the confirmation of Adwan’s death, the number of prisoners known to have died in Israeli custody since the war began has risen to 87, including 51 from Gaza.

UN Warns Child Malnutrition in Gaza Nears 95,000 Cases as Winter Worsens Crisis

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/un-warns-child-malnutrition-in-gaza-nears-95000-cases-as-winter-worsens-crisis/


_{More Palestinian children are facing severe consequences of malnutrition at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza.}

The United Nations warned on Monday that child malnutrition in the Gaza Strip has reached critical levels, with nearly 95,000 cases identified since the start of 2025, as severe winter weather threatens to reverse already fragile humanitarian progress.

Speaking at a press briefing, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that humanitarian conditions in Gaza remain dire, with harsh weather increasingly undermining relief efforts on the ground.

Dujarric noted that agencies coordinating the nutrition response continue to identify large numbers of children requiring urgent intervention. He said that humanitarian partners screened more than 76,000 children last month alone, detecting approximately 4,900 cases of acute malnutrition, including over 820 cases classified as severe.

“These latest figures bring the total number of acute malnutrition cases identified in 2025 to nearly 95,000,” he said.

Australian writers’ festival cancelled after Palestinian author axed

A top writers’ festival in Australia has been called off amid controversy over the cancellation of a scheduled appearance by a prominent Australian Palestinian activist and author.

The organisers of Adelaide Writers’ Week said on Tuesday that the event could no longer go ahead following a wave of speaker withdrawals and board resignations prompted by the removal of Randa Abdel-Fattah from the lineup.

In a statement, the festival’s board said while it had disinvited Abdel-Fattah out of respect for the Jewish community in the wake of the Bondi Beach mass shooting, the decision had created “more division”.

“We recognise and deeply regret the distress this decision has caused to our audience, artists and writers, donors, corporate partners, the government and our own staff and people,” the board said.

“We also apologise to Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah for how the decision was represented and reiterate this is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history.”

Abdel-Fattah said in a statement shared on social media that she did not accept the board’s apology, calling it “disingenuous”.

“It is clear that the board’s regret extends to how the message of my cancellation was conveyed, not the decision itself,” Abdel-Fattah said.

“Once again, the Board citing the ‘national discourse’ for an action that specifically targets me, a Palestinian Australian Muslim woman, is explicitly articulating that I cannot be part of the national discourse, which is insulting and racist in the extreme. The Board again reiterates the link to a terror attack I had nothing to do with, nor did any Palestinian.”

Hi Everyone This Is Bisan Talking To You From Raza Where There Is A Million Reasons To Die…



…And Zero Reasons To Survive.” The genocide continues as Israel blocks aid and continues, killing and bombing.

Palestine Action Hunger Strikers In Critical State

Two hunger-striking remand prisoners linked to Palestine Action have now entered a critical state after having refused food for well over two months…

ON CAM: Israeli Radical Jews STORM IDF Event; Attack Soldiers, Ransack Venue, Injure Troops

Violence erupted in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak when extremist Haredi protesters stormed an IDF gathering honoring parents of new recruits. Around 100 protesters forced their way into the venue, assaulting soldiers and senior officers from the newly formed Hashmonaim Brigade, a unit central to Israel’s conscription debate. A rabbi teaching Torah to ultra-Orthodox soldiers was beaten unconscious and partially stripped. Several soldiers were injured. Senior commanders were evacuated under police protection. The IDF condemned the attack, calling it a red line. Political leaders warned the violence highlights Israel’s deepening internal divide over military service.

The Fatal ICE Shooting and Gaza Are More Connected Than You Realize

Veteran and whistleblower Anthony Aguilar joins Cenk Uygur to discuss ICE agents training with Israeli security forces.

Iran, Gaza and the politics of counting the dead

There is a crisis of belief in Western media, one that has little to do with evidence and everything to do with whose deaths align with the interests of empire.

For two and a half years, Western media has scrutinised every dead Palestinian, and the ways in which their bodies were maimed, broken and burned in Gaza. Were they real people? If they were, were they truly dead? If dead, were they actually killed by Israel’s bombs, bullets, torture and siege? If they were killed, how could anyone know they were not combatants, and thus actually “deserved it”?

The destruction reported by Palestinians on the ground, by those watching their loved ones fall one by one, was not believed. Even the death toll periodically released by the Gaza Health Ministry, widely acknowledged to be a massive undercount, was repeatedly questioned.

As of late 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry reports that at least 70,117 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, with a large majority of those victims civilians. The United Nations and countless independent researchers agree that the official toll is an undercount. In the first nine months of the war alone, the number of deaths from traumatic injury was estimated at around 64,000, approximately 40 percent higher than the ministry’s figure, and that does not account for deaths caused by lack of healthcare, starvation or failures in water and sanitation. All demographic modelling suggests that overall mortality is significantly higher once indirect deaths are included. A July 2024 study published in The Lancet put the figure at more than 186,000. There is no doubt that hundreds of thousands more have lost their lives to bombs, bullets, avoidable illnesses and hunger since.

The Health Ministry documents deaths through hospital morgues, recording names and ID numbers, counting only the bodies it is able to identify because, as we all know, many bodies in Gaza, blown to pieces, crushed under rubble or flattened by tanks, can never be identified. Further, with every hospital in the Gaza Strip bombed or rendered inoperable, there were periods when morgues were unable to count even bodies that were identifiable.

Yet Western media, to this day, refuses to report the true scale of the carnage, and even the undercount it does publish is wrapped in caveats. It is “disputed by Israel”, “cannot be confirmed”, or merely “claimed” by the “Hamas-run health ministry”, never treated as an established fact.

Juliet Stevenson on Gaza: ‘I’m disappointed by the silence in my industry’


_{Award-winning actor Juliet Stevenson, 69, is a prominent public figure who advocates for Palestinian rights}

Juliet Stevenson, one of Britain’s most recognisable actors who is widely regarded as a national treasure, has taken on a new role over the past two years.

She has become a leading voice for Palestinians, marching at rallies, making speeches, signing protest letters, writing columns and producing films – using every opportunity to spell out the brutality of Israel’s atrocities on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Last week, alongside dozens of other cultural icons such as Judi Dench, Meera Syal and Sienna Miller, Stevenson wrote to the founder of Mumsnet, a popular online forum where mothers discuss a range of issues from childcare and parental leave to transgenderism, politics and global wars.

The famous mothers want Justine Roberts, the founder, to pressure the United Kingdom’s government to demand that Israel allow maternity clinics stuck in Egypt into Gaza and give access to NGOs trying to deliver aid – especially items essential to women and girls, such as menstrual and hygiene supplies.

Far-right pro-Israel group Betar US to end activity in New York: NY AG says

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/14/far-right-pro-israel-group-betar-us-to-end-activity-in-new-york-ny-ag-says


_{Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather at Columbia University in New York City, US, in October 2023}

New York Attorney General Letitia James says that her office has reached a settlement with the pro-Israel group Betar US over the alleged harassment of pro-Palestinian activists that will see the far-right Zionist group gradually shutter its operations in the state.

James said in a statement on Tuesday that an investigation found that the group engaged in “widespread persecution” of Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and Jewish New Yorkers.

“New York will not tolerate organizations that use fear, violence, and intimidation to silence free expression or target people because of who they are,” James said.

“My office’s investigation uncovered an alarming and illegal pattern of bias-motivated harassment and violence designed to terrorize communities and shut down lawful protest.”

Betar US gained a reputation among pro-Palestinian activists as an especially aggressive example of groups that use surveillance and harassment to stifle critics of Israel. The far-right group also gained attention on social media, where it relished attacks on its enemies and embraced the language of vengeance and retribution.

“Not enough,” the group said in a deleted social media post responding to a list of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. “We demand blood in Gaza!”

The statement from James’s office says that the group is seeking to dissolve its not-for-profit corporation, has indicated it is “winding down” operations in New York state, and will cease harassing individuals exercising their constitutional rights.

James said the group will be forced to pay a suspended $50,000 penalty if it violates the settlement.

Palestinian factions agree on membership of Gaza post-war governance committee, Egypt says

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260114-consensus-reached-on-gaza-post-war-governance-committee-egypt-says

Egypt said Wednesday that all the members of a 15-person Palestinian technocratic committee meant to administer post-war Gaza had been agreed upon by all Palestinian factions, who swiftly offered their support.

Under a 20-point Gaza truce plan brokered by US President Donald Trump in October, the Palestinian territory would be governed by the committee operating under the supervision of a so-called "Board of Peace", to be chaired by Trump himself.

Meanwhile, Trump's envoy said Wednesday that the plan to end the Gaza war was now moving to Phase Two with a goal of disarming Hamas, despite a number of Israeli strikes during the ceasefire.

"We are announcing the launch of Phase Two of the President's 20-Point Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction,"

Phase Two "begins the full demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza, primarily the disarmament of all unauthorized personnel."

"The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations, including the immediate return of the final deceased hostage. Failure to do so will bring serious consequences," he said.

Conditions in Gaza worsen as winds and hypothermia kill 5

At least four people have been killed as winter winds sent walls collapsing onto flimsy tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by the genocidal war in Gaza.

Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza more than two years after the start of the devastating Israeli bombardment and amid continuing aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since October 10, but aid groups say Palestinians still lack the shelter needed to withstand frequent winter storms.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said at least 100 children less than the age of 18 – 60 boys and 40 girls – have been killed since the truce began, as a result of military operations, including drone and air attacks, tank shelling and the use of live ammunition.

Those figures, he said, cover only incidents where sufficient details have been compiled to warrant recording, and the true toll is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of children have been wounded.

Displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis struggle as strong winds tear apart their tents

Thousands of displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis are enduring one of the harshest nights of their displacement, as the strongest low-pressure system since the start of winter hits Gaza. MEE documented conditions inside displacement camps, where fragile, torn tents failed to withstand strong winds or protect families from the bitter cold.

Displaced residents said they spent the night without sleep, while children shivered due to a lack of clothing and blankets after more than two years of war and siege. Mothers described staying awake all night out of fear for their children, as winds ripped through tents and left some families exposed to the open air. Amid worsening humanitarian conditions, the camps are becoming increasingly uninhabitable, turning winter nights into another daily struggle for survival.

Gaza plan phase two: US to discuss Hamas disarmament, Israeli withdrawal

Hamas leaders and representatives of other Palestinian factions in Gaza are in the Egyptian capital Cairo for talks on the second phase of the United States-led Gaza ceasefire deal, amid a teetering ceasefire that Israel has repeatedly violated as its genocidal war continues.

The Palestinian group on Thursday welcomed the establishment of a 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee that would operate under the overall supervision of a so-called “Board of Peace”, to be chaired by US President Donald Trump.

“The formation of the committee is a step in the right direction,” said Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas leader. “This is crucial for consolidating the ceasefire, preventing a return to war, addressing the catastrophic humanitarian crisis and preparing for comprehensive reconstruction.”

Deep uncertainty remains over the next steps involving the disarmament of Palestinian armed groups in the Strip, rebuilding and daily governance.

An adviser to the head of Hamas’s political bureau told Al Jazeera that discussions in Cairo are focusing on reopening the Rafah crossings, ensuring the entry of aid currently stockpiled on the Egyptian side of the border and securing an Israeli withdrawal.

Taher al-Nunu said Hamas “must work with mediators and the international community to achieve calm and a return to normalcy in Gaza” and praised the “great efforts” being made to implement what was agreed upon.

Al-Nunu also accused Israel of attempting to derail the ceasefire and said Hamas was “working with mediators to open the crossings, allow aid in and secure the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip”.

However, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, known as Kan, reported that Israeli officials consider the so-called yellow line – a buffer zone in eastern Gaza – as a strategic area that will remain under Israeli control.

Israel’s current military occupation of Gaza is more than 50 percent of the besieged enclave.


The leaders of Palestinian armed groups were also scheduled to meet Bulgarian diplomat and politician Nickolay Mladenov, who will likely head the Board of Peace. Trump is expected to announce the 15 members of the technocratic committee in the coming days.

Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh welcomed efforts to move ‌ahead with the Gaza plan and argued that institutions in Gaza should be linked to those run by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, “upholding the principle of one system, one law and one legitimate weapon”

The administrative body will be tasked with providing public services to the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza, but it faces towering challenges and unanswered questions, including about its operations and financing. The United Nations has estimated that reconstruction will cost more than $50bn. The process is expected to take years, and little money has been pledged so far.

Shaath told local broadcaster Basma Radio on Thursday that the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) will be fully integrated with the PA under a “one homeland, one system” framework and that no foreign members will be included.

Its jurisdiction will expand to cover the entire Gaza Strip as Israeli forces withdraw, Shaath said in the interview, and there will be no contact between its members and Palestinian armed groups.

Additionally, reconstruction efforts will be financed via a dedicated World Bank fund supported by Arab and international donors, with debris used to build artificial islands through marine land reclamation or recycled for road construction.

Complete debris removal is estimated to take nearly three years under the proposed strategy, he said.

Shaath added that shelters for displaced Palestinians would be established within the first six months, and that the repair of desalination plants to obtain potable water and the rehabilitation of schools and other academic institutions would be a top priority.

Lots of words and 'promises'. And wtf is the idea to dump toxic debris in the marine life to create artificial islands... The Rafah crossing was supposed to be opened months ago, aid was supposed to be going in unhindered since the start of the ceasefire. 

The whole 'peace plan' is a fraud, but its doing its job, get the world to ignore the ongoing genocide.