Outcry as Israel bans main UN Palestinian aid agency

JERUSALEM - Israel's parliament on Monday approved a bill banning the main UN aid agency for the war-devastated Gaza Strip, sparking international outcry.

Despite objections from the United States and warnings from the UN Security Council, Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the bill banning the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from working in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem.

Israel strictly controls all humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza, and lawmakers also passed a measure prohibiting Israeli officials from working with UNRWA and its employees.

UNRWA has provided essential aid, schooling, healthcare and assistance across the Palestinian territories and to Palestinian refugees elsewhere for more than seven decades.

"There is a deep connection between the terrorist organisation [Hamas] and UNRWA, and Israel cannot put up with it," Yuli Edelstein, one of the lawmakers who sponsored the bill, said in parliament as he presented the proposal.

Palestinian militant group Hamas, locked in conflict with Israel in Gaza, called the bill an act of "Zionist aggression" towards Palestinians, while its ally Islamic Jihad described the ban as "an escalation in the genocide".

Even several of Israel's staunch Western allies voiced disquiet at the ban, with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying Britain was "gravely concerned".

Germany - which has been a staunch defender of Israel's security - warned it would "effectively make UNRWA's work in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem impossible... jeopardising vital humanitarian aid for millions of people".

UN chief Antonio Guterres warned the Israeli law could have "devastating consequences" if implemented and "would likely prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media that Israel was "ready" to continue providing aid to Gaza "in a way that does not threaten Israel's security".

The ban comes as fighting rages in Gaza and Lebanon, where a second full-scale front opened last month.

Earlier Monday, Netanyahu's office said Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea had met US and Qatari mediators in Doha, where they agreed that they should talk to Hamas about a deal to free Israelis seized in last year's 7 October attack by Palestinian militants.

"In the coming days, discussions will continue between the mediators and Hamas to assess the feasibility of talks and to further efforts to promote a deal," Netanyahu's office said.

The statement came two days after Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proposed a two-day truce and limited hostage-prisoner exchange that he said could lead to a permanent ceasefire.

But Netanyahu later said he had not received the Egyptian proposal.

Asked about the possibility of a Gaza ceasefire, US President Joe Biden said: "We need a ceasefire. We should end this war. It should end, it should end, it should end."

After the 7 October attack, the bloodiest in Israel's history, the military launched a massive offensive in Gaza to root out Hamas.

Israel has killed the Islamist group's top leadership, but the war has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and driven almost all Gazans from their homes, reducing much of the territory's infrastructure to rubble.

HOSTAGE FAMILY PRESSURE

During the 7 October attack, Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, including soldiers and civilians, of whom 97 are still in Gaza. The Israeli ministry says 34 of these are dead.

Netanyahu's government is under mounting pressure from both hostage families and the international community to agree a ceasefire to allow the rest to come home.

Under the plan announced by Sisi, "four hostages would be exchanged for some prisoners in Israeli jails", followed by more negotiations within 10 days aiming to secure "a complete ceasefire and the entry of aid" into Gaza.

Renewed talk of a ceasefire came as violence continued. At least 60 people were killed on Monday in Israeli raids on several areas in Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa Valley, where Iran-backed Hezbollah holds sway, Lebanon's health ministry said.

The region's governor, Bachir Khodr, decried what he called the "most violent" raids on the area since the Israel-Hezbollah war began about one month ago.

That followed a year of low-intensity exchanges and cross-border attacks that the Lebanese group said were in support of Hamas.

Israeli bombing in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre killed at least seven people and wounded 17, according to the health ministry.

Hezbollah said it ambushed and clashed with Israeli troops near Lebanon's southern border and fired rockets at a naval base inside Israel near Haifa.

Israel did not immediately confirm the targets, but said 115 projectiles had been fired over the frontier.

According to an AFP tally based on official figures, at least 1,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since 23 September, when the fighting escalated.

'UNBEARABLE'

In Gaza, rescuers reported fresh strikes on Monday, while the Israeli military said it hit Jabalia refugee camp, in the north, killing dozens of militants.

Since 6 October, the military has been carrying out a fresh air and ground assault in north Gaza to destroy operational capabilities it says Hamas is trying to rebuild there.

An Israeli military official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said the goal was to clear Jabalia of militants, which "will take us at least [several] weeks" to achieve.

The official said Israel was not forcing residents to leave, claiming that "the safer zone in the Gaza Strip is in the south, but it's up to them" to decide whether to go.

But the process has left 100,000 people trapped in a "siege", Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said late Sunday.

"For 22 days, not a drop of water or bread has entered the northern Gaza Strip," Bassal said in a statement.

Last year's 7 October attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The UN considers these figures reliable.