Israel versus the United Nations

Israel has refused to issue visas to United Nations officials after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obliquely condemned Israeli orders to evacuate Gazans from the north to the south. Above all, he also said Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 did not happen “in a vacuum” as the Palestinians have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.

According to Al Jazeera’s reporter Gabriel Elizondo, Israel was “furious” and its officials called on the UN chief to resign.

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Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who was at the debate, “was so upset”, said Elizondo, “that he cancelled a meeting with the secretary-general that was supposed to happen Tuesday afternoon”.

Additionally, the UN had been raising concerns over the lack of fuel in Gaza and the potential pause in its operations. In response to one of the UN’s posts on Tuesday, the Israeli military suggested the UN should approach Hamas for fuel supplies.

The Israeli military claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that Hamas has more than 500,000 litres of fuel in tanks inside Gaza.

“Ask Hamas if you can have some,” the military wrote.

103 killed in occupied West Bank

Increasing Israeli raids since October 7 in the occupied West Bank have resulted in 103 deaths.

Syrian army attacked by Israel

The Israeli military claims to have targeted Syrian army infrastructure and mortar launches, asserting that it was a response to Syrian aims at Israel.

“Lebanon was never an aggressor”: Ambassador

During the UN Security Council meeting, Lebanon’s ambassador, Hadi Hachem, stated that his country “is exerting every effort to disassociate” from this “bloody conflict”.

He added that Lebanon was never an aggressor.

“It has always been a victim of aggression by Israel since the [1960s].”

Referring to Gazans, he said “There is no law or doctrine that justifies the systematic killing of a population that lives in an open-air prison for more than a half a century.”

Hachem also shed light on the killings of 13 journalists in Gaza (including the killing of Lebanese journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon) because of Israeli attacks, “proof” of Israel’s “policy to suppress freedoms”.

Earlier in the debate, the US accused Iran and its proxies of destabilising the region, claims the Iranian ambassador categorically rejected.

600,000 Palestinians displaced

The UN is reportedly sheltering nearly 600,000 Palestinians who have been internally displaced in 150 facilities whereas at least 40 UNRWA installations have been affected following Israeli attacks.

“Our shelters are four times over their capacities. Many people are sleeping on the streets as current facilities are overwhelmed,” the agency said in a post shared on X.