UN chief urges nations to fund $100m UNRWA gap

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged countries to cover a $100m gap in funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, saying the body is nearing a breaking point after deep cost-cutting and austerity measures.

“They cannot keep going like this without urgent backing and financial support from member states,” Guterres told an ad hoc meeting of the General Assembly. He noted that the agency had taken decisive steps to implement reforms following Israel’s accusations, including that some UNRWA staff members were involved in the October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.

“UNRWA is a stabilising force in an age of ⁠instability,” he said, rejecting what he called continued efforts to undermine the agency through “disinformation, smear campaigns, legislative actions, operational restrictions, diplomatic roadblocks and more”.

UNRWA operates in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, providing aid, schooling, healthcare, social services and shelter to 2.6 million Palestinians.

Israel has repeatedly accused the agency of showing leniency towards or cooperating with Palestinian armed groups, though it has not presented publicly verifiable evidence to support those claims.

UNRWA has strongly rejected the allegations.

Gaza ceasefire talks

A Hamas delegation has held talks with Egyptian and Turkish intelligence chiefs in Cairo to advance the US-brokered ceasefire agreement with Israel.

The deal, agreed in October 2025, led to the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners, and calls for Israel’s withdrawal from the war-battered Strip. Nearly 10 months on, many obstacles remain.

• The last captives held in Gaza were freed in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinians, but Israel continues to restrict phase-one provisions, including the entry of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations of thousands of sick and wounded people.
• Israel continues near-daily attacks on Gaza, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians since the truce was announced, and expanding its control to more than 70 percent of the territory.
• Humanitarian conditions in Gaza remain dire, with the vast majority of its two million people living in overcrowded and squalid tent camps infested by rodents and with little access to healthcare.
• Hamas has refused to disarm, citing Israeli violations and warning that stripping weapons from an occupied people would make them an “easy victim to be eliminated”.
• A technocratic committee to govern Gaza, led by former Palestinian Authority minister Ali Shaath, was formed in January, but it still cannot enter the Strip.
• A multinational International Stabilization Force is preparing to deploy between Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled areas in Gaza a

Netanyahu says expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza remains on the agenda

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appeared on the Channel 14 broadcaster to defend his record as he prepares to contest elections later this year.

He was asked about two issues that The Jerusalem Post said were “central to the right flank of his coalition”: the expulsion of the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza and the establishment of illegal settlements in the Strip.

On the first question, Netanyahu said that “voluntary emigration” remains on the agenda. On the second question, he said: “The question is whether you prefer to do or to talk. And yes, I prefer not to address it.”

Critics have previously described “voluntary emigration” as a euphemism for the ethnic cleansing of war-ravaged Gaza, which has been rendered uninhabitable after Israel’s genocidal war.

Netanyahu’s remarks come just days after he said there was “no room for two states” between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Democrats split over cutting $3.3bn in aid to Israel

About the upcoming vote in the US House of Representatives on a bill to cut $3.3bn in funding for Israel.

According to The Hill, a US news outlet, Democratic leaders have urged members to vote with their conscience following a “fraught” caucus meeting on the issue. Congressman Bennie Thompson expressed shock at the conversions about Israel, telling The Hill: “I’ve been around a long time, I’ve never seen it.”

The amendment is expected to fail, according to The Hill, with Republicans unlikely to back the measure and Democrats split on it.

Progressive Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, have expressed support while centrist Democrats have opposed it.

Greg Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told US outlet Jewish Insider that he opposed the measure, saying, “I don’t want Israel to be without what they need.”

Adam Smith, the ranking democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, also told the Jewish Insider he opposed the measure because it would cut “humanitarian aid, military aid – all aid for Israel”.

Voting on the measure is expected this week, according to Tlaib.

Israeli military claims killing four Hamas fighters over past week

The Israeli military says it killed four Hamas fighters in strikes on northern Gaza.

In a statement on Telegram, the military named the four Hamas fighters as Wael Mahmoud Ali Labad, Muaz Mohammad Hassan Ahmad, Sameh Abu Kamil and Akram Ashraf Hamad Labad.

It did not offer evidence for its claim that the four were fighters.

It added that Israeli forces also struck and dismantled launchers and launch shafts used by Hamas on Monday.

Israeli forces have killed at least 73,066 Palestinians and wounded 173,514 others in Gaza since launching their genocidal war began in October 2023. Among the dead are 1,053 people killed since the “ceasefire” of October last year.

Israeli military deliberately targeting children in Gaza

A UN inquiry found that children in Gaza are being shot with a single bullet.

Israeli minister says Israel will control 100% of Gaza

Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Eli Cohen says Israel’s control over the Gaza Strip “will only continue to grow” until it reaches “100 percent”.

Speaking to Galei Israel radio, Cohen said Israel cannot allow Hamas “to raise its head even by a millimeter”.

Israel controlled 53 percent of Gaza two months ago, about 60 percent a month ago and that figure is “close to 70 percent” today, he added.

Israeli forces detain 5 Palestinians during West Bank incursion

Israeli soldiers detained five Palestinians, including a woman, during early morning raids in the Ramallah governorate of the occupied West Bank.

The official Wafa news agency said troops stormed the town of Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, and detained Mohammad Abdul Karim Surour, 55, Shukri Mahmoud Al-Khawaja, 58, Yousef Ali Surour, 46, and Mousa Abdul Karim Surour, 58, after searching their homes.

Troops also reportedly briefly detained Salah al-Khawaja, 58. He was released after receiving a summons for interrogation by Israeli intelligence.

“Forces also raided the Batn al-Hawa neighbourhood in Ramallah city and detained Jamila Dahou after storming her home,” Wafa said.

Israeli army blocks access to occupied West Bank town

Israeli forces have closed all access points to Sinjil, a town north of Ramallah, blocking roads with iron gates, earth mounds and military bulldozers.

Sinjil is now “completely isolated” because of the blockade, according to the Palestinian government’s communication centre.

Earlier, Palestine’s Quds news channel said on X that “settlers are preparing new mobile homes [caravans] on the summit of Ras Hill in the village of Um Safa, north of Ramallah”, as raids and settler attacks in the occupied West Bank increase.

Gaza’s farmland shrinks as the Israeli genocidal war devastates agriculture

Gaza’s agricultural sector has been devastated since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian enclave in October 2023.

Cultivated land has fallen from 9,300 hectares (22,980 acres) to just 400 hectares (990 acres). Eighty-five percent of greenhouses have been destroyed while restrictions on the entry of fertilisers, seeds and pesticides continue to compound the crisis.

Israel’s ‘expansionist policy’ is chaos for the Middle East: Turkey

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara says Turkey has discussed with allies at every opportunity possible measures to stop Israel from its military push throughout the region.

“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s expansionist policy is one that supports chaos, instability, war, tears, destruction, and genocide in the region,” said Fidan.

The rhetoric between the two sides has heated up over Israel’s military invasions of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.