EXPLAINER
Israel confirms flooding tunnels with seawater, the UN rallies to renew UNRWA funding.
Right here’s how issues stand on Wednesday, January 31, 2024:
Newest updates
- The Israeli military confirmed on Tuesday that it has been flooding tunnels in Gaza with seawater for a number of weeks.
- A Hamas official instructed Reuters information company on Tuesday that the group is learning a brand new proposal for a three-stage truce with Israel.
- Not less than half of the buildings throughout the Gaza Strip have been destroyed since October 7, in accordance with evaluation verified by the BBC on Tuesday.
- Israel has repeated new evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in western Gaza Metropolis, the place 88,000 Palestinians had been residing in shelters, the United Nations Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) stated in a report on Monday.
Human affect and combating
- The USA Central Command (CENTCOM) stated a US warship shot down a Houthi antiship cruise missile within the Purple Sea on Tuesday.
- US-based suppose tanks Institute for the Examine of Struggle (ISW) and the Important Threats Undertaking (CTP) stated on Wednesday that Palestinian armed teams are possible within the early phases of rebuilding their army and governance capabilities within the north of the Gaza Strip solely. Their evaluation added that Hamas just isn’t essentially getting ready for an offensive marketing campaign in the way in which that Western media have steered.
- The Israeli army introduced on Wednesday that three troopers have been killed in fight in Gaza, whereas 5 extra have been critically injured.
- The destiny of an ambulance crew and a six-year-old lady they have been making an attempt to rescue from a automobile shelled by the Israeli army in Gaza Metropolis stays “unknown”, the Palestine Purple Crescent Society (PRCS) stated on Tuesday.
‘Collapse’ of help system in Gaza
- UN Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres appealed to key donors to renew funding the UN’s company for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in a closed-door assembly of 35 international locations on Tuesday, reported The Occasions of Israel.
- Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the quick closure of UNRWA because it fears this might trigger a “humanitarian disaster”, a senior authorities official stated on Tuesday, in accordance with The Occasions of Israel.
- Martin Griffiths, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned in an announcement launched on Tuesday that the suspension of funding of UNRWA “would outcome within the collapse” of the help system within the Gaza Strip.
- The US has “reached out to the federal government of Israel to hunt extra data” about allegations Israel made towards 12 workers members of UNRWA being concerned in Hamas’s October 7 assaults, Washington’s ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, instructed reporters on Tuesday.
- In a publish on X on Wednesday, UN Particular Rapporteur Francesca Albanese stated the governments suspending funds to UNRWA represents “double requirements” after they proceed to assist Israel, whose actions “plausibly represent” genocide.
Diplomacy
- The UN Safety Council is anticipated to satisfy to debate the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice’s interim ruling on Israel’s warfare in Gaza on Wednesday at 11am New York time (16:00 GMT).
- The UN’s human rights workplace launched an announcement on Tuesday calling the “deliberate extrajudicial execution” of three Palestinian males inside Ibn Sina Hospital within the occupied West Financial institution metropolis of Jenin “illegal”.
- The Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group in Iraq stated in an announcement launched on Tuesday that it has suspended all army operations towards US forces within the area to forestall the “embarrassment of the Iraqi authorities”.
