A UN Security Council resolution on Friday called for increased humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip amid reports of widespread hunger but stopped short of calling for a cessation in hostilities. Meanwhile, Israeli forces said they were widening their ground offensive with a new push into central Gaza. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
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Summary:
- The UN Security Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for speeding up humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip amid reports of widespread hunger but stopped short of calling for a suspension in hostilities. After repeated delays, the resolution passed without the original call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas. Friday’s vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining.
- Hamas on Friday said the UN Security Council resolution demanding more aid into the Gaza Strip was "insufficient" while Israel said the UN should focus on the remaining hostages held in the Palestinian enclave. The Palestinian representative to the UN, meanwhile, said the vote was "a step in the right direction" while reiterating calls for an immediate ceasefire.
- Israel's military on Friday ordered residents of Al-Bureij in central Gaza to move south immediately, indicating a new focus of the ground assault that has devastated much of the Strip.
- More than half a million people in Gaza are starving due to insufficient food entering the territory since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, according to a UN report released Thursday.
- Israeli officials say 1,139 were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in southern Israel, among them 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children. More than 20,000 people have been killed in Israel's ensuing assault on the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.
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Key developments from yesterday:
- UN says more than 1 in 4 people in Gaza are starving because of war.
- Fourteen Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in three separate attacks on Thursday in northern, central and southern Gaza Strip, medics said.
- For journalists, the first 10 weeks of the war have been the deadliest recorded, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a report on Thursday.
- The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said it had delivered food into war-torn Gaza through the Israeli Kerem Shalom border crossing in the first direct aid convoy from Jordan.
- Residents of Khan Younis in Gaza reported intensifying gun battles between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces in the centre and eastern districts of the southern city.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
