Children stand atop a small hill near tents at a make-shift shelter for Palestinians who fled to Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 30, 2024.
Doha, Qatar: The withdrawal of funds to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees is 'perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza', according to statements from UN agencies. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also appealed to major donors to resume the funding in a closed-door meeting of 35 countries on Tuesday.
Israeli attacks on Gaza remain relentless as Palestinians continue to suffer from dispacement, hunger, and dire humanitarian conditions.
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[3:07pm Doha Time] ‘Real suffering, real pain’: Aid worker warns northern Gaza on ‘verge of famine’
Shadi Jenaina – the head of Al Baraka Charity Society, an Algerian charity organisation inside the Gaza Strip – tells Al Jazeera that northern Gaza “is teetering on the verge of famine”.
“It is real plight, real suffering, real pain,” he said. “The north of Gaza has been laid under tight siege. Almost no relief aid has been delivered to the people here since the beginning of Israel’s aggression.”
“Even when some aid is handed out, the Israeli forces target and kill innocent civilians lining up for food,” he added.
[2:45pm Doha Time] Israel shells al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza second time in 48 hours
Dr Mohammed Salha, a health official at al-Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, has confirmed that its buildings and yard were shelled at dawn.
It was the fourth targeting of this medical facility since the beginning of the war and the second within 48 hours.
“We are a non-governmental hospital that has been working to provide services to citizens, especially at the level of obstetrics and gynaecology. We are the only hospital that provides these services in the northern Gaza Strip at the present time,” Salha said.
Abdul Rahman Abu Sitta, one of the patients inside the hospital, said the Israeli army continued to target the hospital to take it out of service.
“Last night and yesterday, the hospital building was hit by four Israeli shells and caused patients to panic,” he said.
Palestinian youths transport bodies in a horse-pulled cart, near the Ahli Arabi hospital in Gaza City, on January 31, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
[2:15pm Doha Time] Death toll in Gaza nears 27,000
Since the war began on October 7, Israeli forces have killed 26,900 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 65,949, according to the latest figures from the enclave’s Ministry of Health.
It added that 150 Palestinians were killed and 313 were wounded in the past 24 hours.
[12:25pm Doha Time] Al-Amal Hospital has been ‘completely pushed out of service’
In the early hours of last night the Israeli military stormed the compound of the al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.
Al Jazeera reported this adding that the compound includes the headquarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which operates at al-Amal Hospital. It also has a building for the emergency and ambulance department.
At al-Amal, there’s also a separate building in the compound in which hundreds of Palestinians have been sheltering since the beginning of the war and the expansion of the military operation in Khan Younis.
But in the early hours of last night, the compound was stormed under heavy machine gun fire and tank shells, injuring at least 10 people. Some people inside the hospital who were bleeding lost their lives as there was no way to take them to Nasser Hospital or other functioning facilities.
Al-Amal Hospital, because of the military siege the past few days, has been completely pushed out of service. It lacks all the medical supplies necessary for any medical intervention. It also lacks fuel and none of the power generators are operating.
This has caused a great deal of difficulty for the remaining medical staff inside the hospital to offer the necessary medical intervention for the injured.
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[11:50am Doha Time] UN Security Council to discuss ICJ ruling
The UN Security Council is expected to meet to discuss the ICJ’s interim ruling on Israel’s war in Gaza on Wednesday at 11am New York time (16:00 GMT).
The meeting comes as Israel confirmed it is “channelling large volumes of water” into tunnels in Gaza, one of the examples cited in South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.
“Recent reports of Israeli plans to flood tunnels in Gaza with seawater is of extreme concern,” South Africa cited as part of its evidence alleging Israel is causing the “mass expulsion” of Palestinians from Gaza.
South Africa said the plan could cause “long-lasting contamination of Gaza’s aquifer and soil” and “further degradation and collapse of Gaza’s water and sewage infrastructure”.
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[8:15am Doha Time] UN aid chief warns of ‘collapse’ in Gaza humanitarian relief over UNRWA
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, has warned that the defunding of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency “would result in the collapse” of the aid system in the Gaza Strip.
The withdrawal of funds from UNRWA – which several mostly Western countries have announced – was “perilous”, Griffith said, and would have “far-reaching consequences” in the occupied Palestinian territories and the region.
“The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza”, Griffiths said in a joint statement with other humanitarian organisation leaders on Tuesday.
A man and children stand by a cistern placed atop a horse-drawn cart near a make-shift shelter for Palestinians who fled to Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 30, 2024. Photo by Mahmud Hams / AFP
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[8am Doha Time] Israel orders 88,000 displaced Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City: UN
Israel has repeated new evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in western Gaza City where 88,000 Palestinians had been living in shelters, the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) has said.
The area, which included the Ash Shati Refugee camp, was home to almost 300,000 Palestinians before October 7, OCHA added in its daily update for Monday.
“The new order covered an area of 12.43 sq km, which amounts to 3.4 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip,” OCHA added.
Some “41 per cent of the Gaza Strip have been placed under such orders” since Israel began issuing evacuation deadlines on December 1, OCHA added.
The residents of Gaza City’s west were told to flee south, despite large numbers of Palestinians leaving Khan Younis in recent days and dangerously overcrowded conditions in Rafah.
A girl holds a make-shift white flag as she walks with other displaced Palestinians fleeing from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 30, 2024. Photo by Mahmud Hams / AFP
