"The situation is devastating": UN warns food and water in Gaza will run out "very soon" The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) called the situation in the Gaza Strip “dire” and warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory. The situation is “devastating” at the moment in Gaza, the WFP’s Palestine country director, Samer Abdeljaber, said in an interview on Thursday. We’re seeing shortages of fuel, of water [and] electricity. We are seeing our shelters that are overcrowded. We don’t have capacity. He added: The bakeries are not going to be able to provide food for tomorrow. So tomorrow is going to be a very difficult situation for the people in the shelters and the people outside the shelters. “It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” Brian Lander, deputy head of emergencies at WFP, told Reuters. We’re providing food to thousands of people that have sought shelter in schools and elsewhere across the territory. But we’re going to run out very soon. He urged Israel and Egypt to create secure corridors for agency workers to be able to bring supplies into Gaza and to make sure UN staff could work safely in the area. We’ve seen a number of sites that are considered humanitarian, or clinics and schools that have been hit by the strikes. So … we again … we are calling on the parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said fuel for hospital generators in Gaza would run out shortly, adding that its stocks of aid and medicine within Gaza were stranded for want of safe passage. Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, said earlier today that no power, water or fuel would be allowed to enter Gaza until Israeli hostages are returned home. Hungary has evacuated a further 65 citizens from Israel, foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said. The evacuated Hungarian nations are en route by ship to Cyprus, from where they will be flown back to Hungary, he said in a statement. Earlier this week Hungary had evacuated 325 people, including 46 children, from Israel by air. Szijjártó said in an earlier statement on Thursday: We would like it if they could come home as soon as possible. Egypt"s Sisi says Gazans must "remain on their land" amid calls to allow civilians to leave The Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, said Gazans must “stay steadfast and remain on their land” amid growing calls for Cairo to allow safe passage to civilians fleeing Gaza. Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip since Saturday and appears poised to send ground troops into the Hamas-controlled enclave where 1,500 Palestinians – including 500 children – have been killed in the past few days. The only viable exit for Gazans to flee is through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, the only passage in and out of the enclave that is not controlled by Israel. Egypt has long restricted the flow of Gazans on to its territory, and previously insisted the two sides resolve conflicts within their borders. Cairo has discussed plans with Washington and others to provide humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing, but rejected any move to set up safe corridors for refugees fleeing Gaza. Egypt is committed to ensuring the delivery “of aid, both medical and humanitarian at this difficult time”, Sisi said in a speech at a military ceremony on Thursday. But Gazans must “stay steadfast and remain on their land”, he said. The Rafah crossing has been closed since Tuesday after Israeli bombardments hit on the Palestinian side, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing officials in Gaza and Egyptian sources. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said Israel’s denial of entry of aid to Gaza was a breach of “humanitarian values and principles” and called for a lifting of the siege. Safadi, in comments on state media and quoted by Reuters, said ending the siege of the Palestinian enclave was the responsibility of the international community. Israel used white phosphorus in attacks in Gaza and Lebanon, says Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch said it had concluded Israel used white phosphorus in military operations in Lebanon and Gaza this week. In a statement, HRW said it had verified videos from Tuesday and Wednesday “showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus” over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border. The organisation said it also interviewed two witnesses of the Gaza attack. Israel’s use of white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon “puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries”, it said. White phosphorus has a “significant incendiary effect” that can “severely burn” people, HRW warned. The use of white phosphorus in Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, “magnifies the risk to civilians and violates the international humanitarian law”, it added. Lama Fakih, HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director, said: Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering. White phosphorus is “unlawfully indiscriminate” in populated urban areas, where it “can burn down houses and cause egregious harm to civilians”, they added. Drone footage shows large areas of neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes. Israel has pummelled Gaza with bombs, killing more than 1,500 Palestinians, and has announced a siege of the strip in retaliation to a deadly attack by Hamas militants last weekend. Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro came under fire today from US and Israeli diplomats after making comments comparing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza to human rights atrocities carried out by the Nazis. “We were shocked to see Colombian President [Gustavo Petro] compare the Israeli government to Hitler’s genocidal regime,” tweeted Deborah Lipstad, the US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. Petro had replied to a statement by Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Monday in which Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza in a fight against “animals”. “This is what the Nazis said of the Jews,” Petro responded on the platform. Petro has refused to condemn the human rights atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and has published more than 100 posts on the conflict in the past five days. Petro’s refusal to condemn the human rights atrocities committed by Hamas while criticising the Israeli occupation of Palestine is drawing strong criticism at home and abroad. When Israel’s ambassador to Colombia, Gali Dagan, asked the Colombian president to condemn the “terrorist attack against innocent civilians”, Petro replied “terrorism is to kill innocent children, whether it be in Colombia or in Palestine.” Twelve Colombian former foreign ministers signed an open letter on Thursday condemning Petro’s partisan stance on the regional conflict which they said is damaging Colombia’s ability to play a role in resolving the conflict. “The messages from the President of the Republic and the Colombian Foreign Office are a radical break from our country’s tradition of respect for international law and multilateralism,” the former diplomats said. Gaza"s health system "at breaking point" after 34 attacks since Saturday, says WHO The World Health Organization said it has documented 34 attacks on health care in Gaza since last Saturday that have resulted in the death of 11 health workers, 16 injuries, and damages to 19 health facilities and 20 ambulances. In a statement, the WHO warned that the health system in the Gaza Strip is “at breaking point”, and that “time is running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.” Hospitals have only “a few hours of electricity each day” as they are forced to ration depleting fuel reserves and rely on generators to sustain the most critical functions, it said. Even these functions will no longer be able to work “in a few days”, when fuel stocks are due to run out. The impact would be devastating for the most vulnerable patients, including the injured who need lifesaving surgery, patients in intensive care units, and newborns depending on care in incubators. The WHO called for an end to hostilities and the protection of health care and civilians against attacks, as well as the establishment of a humanitarian corridor for health and humanitarian supplies. Without the immediate entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza – especially health services, medical supplies, food, clean water, fuel, and non-food items – humanitarian and health partners will be unable to respond to urgent needs of people who desperately need it. Each lost hour puts more lives at risk. Israel"s public affairs minister resigns Israel’s public affairs minister, Galit Distel Atbaryan, announced she has resigned from her post. In a social media post, she said other governmental ministries were better equipped to handle Israel’s diplomatic efforts. The Times of Israel reports that critics of Distel Atbaryan had said her ministry had no real powers or justification, and that what little it had produced had been widely mocked. More than 338,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the UN said, as heavy Israeli bombardments continue to hit the Palestinian enclave. Brazil has sent one of its presidential planes to Europe in the hope of rescuing about 20 citizens who are trapped in the Gaza Strip, where more than 1,500 Palestinians have now been killed. The Embraer aircraft took off from Brazil on Thursday afternoon and is heading to Rome, where it will wait for permission to continue to Egypt in case a humanitarian corridor is opened, allowing citizens of the South American country to flee across that country’s tightly controlled border with Gaza. Brazilian diplomats have reportedly asked Egyptian authorities to help 20-or-so of its citizens leave the Palestinian territory. Thirteen of the Brazilians, including several children, are currently sheltering in a Catholic school in Gaza which Brazilian authorities have asked Israeli officials not to bomb. “Our goal right now is to save lives,” Celso Amorim, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s top foreign policy advisor, told the newspaper O Globo. Nearly 500 Brazilians have so far been evacuated from Israel on three government flights. On Wednesday the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called for an end to “the insanity of war”. There are reports of sporadic episodes of violence or aggression occurring in other parts of Israel and other Palestinian territories further afield from Gaza and that southern region. In Jerusalem, it appears that a Palestinian gunman began shooting near Herod’s Gate in the Old City that leads to and from the Muslim Quarter. Two border police officers were wounded and the fate of the gunman is not yet established, the Guardian’s Beth McKernan reports. And in Masafer Yatta, a group of Palestinian hamlets in the southern portion of the occupied West Bank, south of Jerusalem and Hebron, Beth has relayed an ominous report from Palestinian journalist Basel Adra that Jewish settlers have donned uniforms as cover to then attack Palestinian residents. Hamas hints Iran, Hezbollah not involved in decision to attack Israel Hamas just gave an unprecedented briefing in English to world media, via Telegram, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Beth McKernan is reporting on the hop, via X/Twitter. She says that the militant group that controls Gaza said that “the decision to launch a military operation was entirely Palestinian.” The subtext appears to be that Hamas allies Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah were not involved in Saturday’s surprise and merciless assault on Israel by militants breaking out of Gaza to launch their attack. Bethan also reports that Hamas made spurious claims that Israeli civilians weren’t deliberately targeted and that the attacks were aimed entirely at Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bases.