GAZANS SAY ISRAEL IS IGNORING THE WORLD COURT
Gazans said the violence in the enclave made a mockery of a World Court ruling last week calling on Israel to do more to help civilians. Gaza health officials say 26,637 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict with thousands more bodies likely under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
“The war continues in a dirtier manner,” said Gaza City resident and Palestinian human rights activist Mustafa Ibrahim, displaced with his family in Rafah near the southern border with Egypt, along with more than a million other Gazans.
Israel ordered new evacuations of the most populated areas of Gaza City, but people said communications blackouts meant many would miss the alerts. Israel says Hamas is responsible for the deaths of civilians because its fighters operate among them, which the fighters deny.
People in the north have been grinding animal feed to make flour after flour, rice and sugar ran out, part of an aid crisis now potentially exacerbated by a withdrawal of support for the United Nations’ aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The United States and several other countries have suspended aid to the agency since Friday after Israel said 13 of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the Oct 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met the head of UN internal investigations to ensure an inquiry into the allegations “will be done swiftly and as efficiently as possible,” a UN spokesperson said.
The Israeli report, seen by Reuters, said 190 UNRWA staff were militants and named 11.
UNRWA, which says more than 150 of its staff have been killed since October and a million Palestinians are sheltering in its buildings, said it would have to end operations within a month if funding was not restored. It said it had promptly fired staff after being alerted to Israel’s allegations.
Air strikes on Monday also hit the southern city of Khan Younis, the main focus of Israeli attacks since last week. That has brought fighting deep into territory where hundreds of thousands of people who already fled other areas are sheltering.
Israel’s military said on Monday it will keep pressure on the city and that it has killed more than 2,000 Palestinian militants there.
In a renewed, desperate exodus, people went south on foot carrying children and bedding. Suleiman Abusari, a boy in a wheelchair pushed by his father, said his legs were amputated after an Israeli drone hit him.
“My dream was to play football,” he said. “They stole my dream.”