Filipe Lazarini, the commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, told the BBC that there are deliberate attempts to dismantle UNRWA, which have nothing to do with neutrality.
"These attempts are aimed at depriving Palestinians of refugee status and undermining Palestinian aspirations for self-determination," he said.
Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun said on Friday that negotiations are the only solution to conflicts such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, during an address to a global gathering of military officials in Beijing, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Top military officials from Russia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Iran and Germany are among more than 500 delegates at the Beijing forum, which has been described as China's answer to the annual Shangri-La meeting in Singapore.
AFP reports that the three-day forum comes as Beijing increasingly positions itself as a mediator in global conflicts, including sending envoys to the Middle East, brokering a temporary ceasefire in northern Myanmar and, last year, facilitating a historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. When it comes to Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, China presents itself as a more neutral actor compared to the US.
A poll in Israel on Friday showed that the right-wing Likud party, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would be the largest single party in parliament if elections were held now, underscoring the gradual recovery from the attacks on October 7 last year, Reuters reported.
The poll, published in the Mariv daily, shows Likud winning 24 seats, compared to the current 32, its best result in Mariv polls since October 7. The National United Party led by centrist and former general Benny Gantz has 21 seats.
Netanyahu's right-wing coalition with a group of nationalist-religious and ultra-Orthodox parties would lose any election held now, with 53 seats in the 120-seat parliament, compared to 58 for the main opposition bloc, according to the poll.
However, Likud's progress shows how far Netanyahu has come since last year when his standing was hit by public anger over security failures when Hamas gunmen stormed Israel, killing 1.200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.
According to Reuters, earlier during the war against Hamas in Gaza, polls regularly showed Likud winning a maximum of 16-18 seats in parliament.
The poll also showed that Netanyahu's personal standing as prime minister is recovering, with respondents preferring him over any alternative candidate except former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is now out of politics.
Despite tensions in the coalition between Netanyahu and several ministers, and regular protests by Israelis demanding a deal to return hostages from Gaza, the government has remained together for nearly two years. The elections are scheduled for 2026.
Israel's military has launched an investigation into claims in Israeli media that the London-based Jewish Chronicle published stories based on "fabricated intelligence" about Hamas, with claims they may have been planted as part of a disinformation campaign.
Among the most controversial claims published by the Jewish Chronicle, the world's oldest Jewish newspaper, was a suggestion last week that the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, could be preparing to flee to Iran with Israeli hostages, a suggestion also made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. .
The Jewish Chronicle article is one of several sensationalist reports in recent months written by a journalist using the pseudonym Ilon Perry, whose resume, which claims to have worked as a journalist, academic and served as an elite secret agent, has also been called into question.
The Guardian says that its checks have turned up no evidence of any significant stories published by Perry as a journalist in English or Hebrew, apart from a recent series of articles for the Jewish Chronicle that are now said to be false.
Perry's articles included what is said to be a detailed account of the assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Hanie in Tehran, the credibility of which has now been called into question.
The Jewish Chronicle announced that they are aware of the allegations regarding the journalist and that the investigation is ongoing.
Asked about the claims made in the article, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said he was not aware of any intelligence that Sinvar was planning to escape with the hostages.
In the following days, several publications, including Israeli media outlets Haaretz and Yediot Ahronot, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian website +972, cited their security sources as suggesting that Perry's claims and previous stories appeared to be fabricated.
Israeli journalists and commentators also pointed to the fact that the story in the Jewish Chronicle served to back up claims Netanyahu had made just a day earlier to justify the presence of Israeli troops in the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt.
Israel's prime minister told a news conference that a military withdrawal would mean Israel would be unable to stop Hamas from smuggling hostages out of Gaza. "They will disappear in Sinai and then end up in Iran or Yemen. They will disappear forever," Netanyahu said.
This in turn led some in Israel to conclude that this story, like perhaps others, was planted to influence the internal debate in Israel over the hostage negotiations.
Relatives of hostages in Gaza and their supporters blocked a main street in Tel Aviv, demanding a deal to free prisoners held by Hamas, The Times of Israel reported.
Demonstrators painted yellow strips along Tel Aviv's Namir Street, chanted "why are they still in Gaza?" and promised not to release the hostages held by Hamas, according to a report in an Israeli online daily.
The Times of Israel reports that police officers from the border unit arrived and tried to remove the protesters from the street.
Aid organizations say more than a million people in Gaza will not have enough food this month, as trucks laden with fresh vegetables and meat languish waiting to cross Israeli checkpoints and thousands of aid packages containing food, medical supplies and even toothbrushes and with shampoo, they remain stuck in a queue of trucks that cannot enter from Egypt, reports the Guardian.
"We estimate that more than a million people in Gaza will go without food in September. More than half of the medicine in our health centers is running out, and we are running out of chlorine for water purification and other basic necessities," said Sam Rose, deputy director of the UN agency. -a for aid to the Palestinians (UNRWA) in Gaza.
He added that UNRWA had resorted to trying to import individual items such as soap, as kits containing different items, such as washing powder, were blocked from entry.
"We believe that we are better off just bringing in soap than trying something more complicated. This shows how desperate the situation is - we are reduced to the absolute minimum to improve hygienic conditions, which is a terrible position in which the risk of infectious diseases increases. So much little help comes in so we can't meet basic needs," he said.
Amed Khan, founder of the humanitarian organization Elpida, said his group had been trying unsuccessfully to bring medical supplies into the area for several months.
The amount of aid coming in, he said, is the absolute minimum needed to ensure people don't starve to death immediately.
"They could die in three years from prolonged malnutrition, but this is the minimum number of trucks needed to avoid immediate death and prevent international outrage," Khan added.
The body of Aysenur Ezgi Eggi, the American-Turkish citizen who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last week, arrived in Turkey today, the country's foreign ministry said, a day after Ankara announced it would launch an investigation into her murder. and request international arrest warrants.
Her father said the funeral was scheduled for Saturday in the Turkish Aegean coastal city of Didim.
Turkish officials held a brief ceremony at Istanbul International Airport, where the body of a Turkish-American activist killed by Israeli fire arrived before her funeral and burial in a city on the Aegean coast.
Istanbul Governor Davut Gul and other officials said prayers in front of Aygi's casket, which was draped in a Turkish flag, before helping to transfer it to another plane bound for the city of Izmir, the AP reported.
Israel said it was highly likely that its soldiers fired the bullet that killed Ezgi Eggi, who was killed last Friday while taking part in a protest against the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but insisted it was an accident.
Minister of Justice Jilmaz Tunc stated that the prosecutor's office in Ankara is investigating "those responsible for the martyrdom and murder of our sister Aysenur Ezgi Aygi".
He told reporters that Turkey has evidence of her murder and will file international arrest warrants.
The Foreign Ministry said she was "deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli soldiers during a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians." "We will do everything so that this crime does not go unpunished," they added.
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday that her killing was unacceptable and that Israel must do more to ensure that such events never happen again. However, they did not order an independent investigation, despite requests from her family.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar thanked Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for his support in the ongoing war with Israel, in a letter released Friday by Hezbollah's media office, the Associated Press reports.
Sinwar's letter was in response to a message Nasrallah had sent earlier, expressing condolences for the killing of a senior Hamas official, Ismail Haniyeh, in July during his visit to Iran.
In the letter, dated Monday, Sinvar thanked Nasrallah for the Iran-backed group's "blessed deeds" for their support of Hamas since Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed 1.200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Sinvar called the war one of the most honorable battles for the Palestinian people.
On October 8, Hezbollah began attacking Israeli military positions along the border, triggering a sustained exchange of fire that has so far claimed hundreds of lives.
According to AP data, more than 500 people have died in Lebanon since Israeli strikes since October 8, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other armed groups, but also more than 100 civilians. In northern Israel, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians were killed in strikes from Lebanon.
The head of Israel's intelligence agency, Unit 8200, has resigned over failings in connection with the October 7 attacks. Commander Josi Sariel announced his decision, taking responsibility for the failures that contributed to the deadly attacks, the Guardian reports.
Sariel said Tuesday that he had informed his superiors of his intention to step down after an initial investigation into Unit 8200's role in failings related to last year's Hamas-led attack was completed.
In an emotional four-page letter to staff, Sariel wrote: "I have failed to fulfill the task expected of me, expected of my subordinates and commanders, and expected of the citizens of the country I love so much. Accountability for Unit 8200's role in intelligence and operational failure falls entirely on me."
Sariel is the latest senior Israeli defense and security official to resign over failings over attacks on southern Israel, in which Palestinian militants have killed nearly 1.200 people and kidnapped around 240.
After the attack, Unit 8200 and Sariel's leadership came under intense scrutiny for their role in what is considered one of Israel's biggest intelligence failures.
Sariel's identity as the commander of Unit 8200 - which has been compared to the US National Security Agency (NSA) - was previously a closely guarded secret in Israel. However, in April the Guardian revealed how the spy chief had left his identity exposed online for several years.
That security breach was linked to a book Sariel published in 2021 under a pseudonym. The book, which presented a radical vision of how artificial intelligence could transform intelligence and military operations, left a digital trail to a private Google account created in Sariel's name.
The gaffe caused a wave of criticism and ridicule of Sariel in the Israeli media and put additional pressure on the head of the cyber-intelligence sector.
Since October 7, Unit 8200 has played a key role in Israel's offensive on Gaza, which has claimed at least 41.000 lives, according to health officials in the area. Under Sariel's leadership, the unit seems to have embraced the vision from his playbook, in which AI systems were used for increasingly complex tasks on the battlefield.
In his resignation letter, Sariel said a preliminary investigation into Unit 8200's role in the failures revealed that its intelligence officers compiled and distributed detailed reports on Hamas plans and preparations before the shocking attack.
Despite that information, he said, the reports failed to overturn the basic assumptions of Israeli intelligence and the military about Hamas' intentions. Sariel admitted that Unit 8200 failed to provide key intelligence about the date of the attack.
While taking personal responsibility for his unit's failings, Sariel pointed to broader failings within Israel's security and political system.
"In the years before, in the months before, as well as on October 7 itself, we all failed as a political and operational system because we failed to connect the dots, see the complete picture and prepare for the threat," he wrote.
Israeli security forces mischaracterized the events that led to the death of a Turkish-American activist during protests in the West Bank, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that its soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Eisenur Ezgi Egi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. .
In a statement, Joe Biden cited evidence from the IDF's initial investigation, saying that "the preliminary investigation showed that this was the result of a tragic mistake due to an unnecessary escalation." The US president also told reporters that Agee was likely killed as a result of a ricocheting bullet, and that "it appears to have been an accident."
However, a Washington Post report said the protests ended before Israeli forces opened fire, indicating there was no immediate threat to the soldiers and little justification for targeting Aiga or any other protester with live ammunition.
According to the investigation, Ejgi "was hit more than half an hour after the height of the conflict in Beita, and about 20 minutes after the demonstrators left the main road - more than 183 meters away from Israeli forces."
The potential target, a Palestinian teenager who was wounded by Israeli fire, was standing about 18 meters from Ejga, witnesses told Post.Save.
The investigation is based on the testimony of 13 witnesses and more than 50 videos and photos provided by the International Solidarity Movement, as well as Faz3a, another Palestinian human rights organization.
The IDF did not respond to The Post's requests for comment regarding why real ammunition was used against the protesters or who the alleged leader of the violent protest they cited in their initial investigation was.
As a rule, the IDF investigates its own actions in cases where protesters in the region have been the target of violence by its soldiers. Agee's family and other human rights activists have publicly called for the US to open an independent investigation into her death, but a State Department spokesman said earlier this week that there were no current plans to do so.
A Post report described a chaotic scene after Friday prayers in the town of Beita, where Palestinian youths set up barricades and threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and live ammunition. But the protests subsided, and Agee retreated into an olive grove away from the soldiers, about 180 meters away, before she was shot in the head, killing her.
After Biden's statement, the Agee family said in a statement: "President Biden is still calling her killing an accident, basing it solely on the Israeli military's story. This is not only insensitive and inaccurate, but complicit in the Israeli military's agenda to appropriate Palestinian land and wash its hands from the murder of an American woman".
Biden did not order an independent investigation in his statement and appeared to indicate that US officials were drawing conclusions based solely on evidence provided by the IDF.
Biden said the U.S. has full access to the preliminary investigation into Israel, and expects it to remain so as the investigation continues, in order to have confidence in the outcome.
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