Middle East crisis | Top developments on January 31, 2024

The United Nations has said that Israel war has left Gaza Strip 'uninhabitable.

"The level of destruction from the latest Israeli military operation rendered (Gaza) uninhabitable," the UN Conference on Trade and Development said in a report.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the population in Gaza is 'starving to death'.

"This is a population that is starving to death, this is a population that is being pushed to the brink," said Michael Ryan, WHO's emergencies director told a press conference.

"The civilians of Gaza are not parties to this conflict and they should be protected, as should be their health facilities."

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is going to meet Israeli defense minister on Wednesday, said AFP citing a source.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in Gaza and said the international community should “act strongly” to end the humanitarian disaster there.

“The blocking of humanitarian aid and medical supplies to Gaza by Israel should never be accepted by the international community,” he told a news conference in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

Mothers of Israeli soldiers gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on Wednesday to urge President Joe Biden to back Israel to win its war on Hamas in Gaza and stop humanitarian aid from entering the war-battered Strip.

“We are asking President Biden to help us win this war swiftly, to demand the immediate release of our hostages that are being held in torturous conditions in Gaza,” said Marilyn Adler, the mother of an IDF soldier. “In order to win this war and the suffering, we must be able to stop that aid from entering Gaza,” she added.

US special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, David Satterfield, discussed on Wednesday (Jan 31) the status of aid delivery to Gaza with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry during his visit to Cairo.

Talks centred around the “needed international action to sustain full aid delivery to Gaza, as well the inevitability of implementing the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions in full,” spokesman of the Egyptian foreign ministry said on X.

Satterfield’s visit comes as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield welcomed a UN inquiry and a planned agency review of the accusations against staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) that some agency staff took part in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.

The United States - UNRWA's biggest donor - temporarily paused its funding, along with a cascade of other countries.

UN office for the coordination of humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, "Between 1 and 25 January, 51 missions to deliver humanitarian aid were planned for the north of Wadi Gaza; however, only eight were facilitated by the Israeli military while 29 were denied access. Most of the missions that were facilitated access were related to food distribution, while those intended to support critical hospitals and Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) facilitates were largely denied access."

"In an emerging pattern, the access of an additional eight planned missions was initially facilitated, but subsequently impeded as routes designated by the Israeli military proved to be unpassable, or the imposition of excessive delays prior to the departure of the missions or at checkpoints en route." 

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is headed to Cairo to engage in discussions about a new ceasefire proposal and the potential release of hostages in Gaza. This proposal emerged following negotiations in Paris involving intelligence officials from Israel, the United States, and Egypt, along with the Prime Minister of Qatar. 

In the last 24 hours, the Israeli military reported the killing of at least 25 Palestinian militants in clashes in Gaza. Additionally, three Israeli soldiers were reported to have lost their lives in battles in both the northern and southern regions of the enclave, according to the military's statement on Wednesday (Jan 31).

The European Union hopes to launch a naval mission in the Red Sea within three weeks to help defend cargo ships against attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen which are hampering trade and driving up prices, the bloc’s top diplomat said Wednesday.

Last week, US and British forces bombed multiple targets in eight locations used by the Iranian-backed Houthis. It was the second time the two allies had conducted coordinated retaliatory strikes on an array of the rebels’ missile-launching capabilities.

As many as 15 leaders of the United Nations agencies and non-governmental humanitarian aid organisations have appealed to the world leaders to reconsider their decision to pause UNRWA funding. 

“Decisions by various Member States to pause funds from UNRWA will have catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza,” the statement said.

According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israel has detained a further 16 people, including two women, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror outfit. has annnounced it is suspending hostilities against US troops in the backdrop of Jordan drone attacks. The group said its de-escalation move was motivated by a desire not to “embarrass” the Iraqi government. 

The Houthi terrorists on Wednesday said it had decided to keep up the attacks on US and UK warships in the Red Sea. 

“The naval forces of the Yemeni armed forces, with the help of God Almighty, fired several missiles at the American destroyer USS Gravely in the Red Sea,” a Houthi statement said.

The IDF said that division’s 401st Armored Brigade killed more than 15 Hamas operatives as it continues its operations in the mostly captured central and northern Gaza areas. 

The IDF, in one raid, said that the troops arrested 10 Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives who were inside a school, and located five rockets which were prepared for launch in the area. 

Iran-aligned Houthi rebels inYemen claimed that, as part of their self defence strategy, they will be targeting US and British warships in the Red Sea, said the group’s military spokesperson in a statement reported by Al-Massirah TV. 

The statement added that the Houthis fired missiles at US warship USS Gravely. The US military’s central command on Tuesday said that they had shot down one anti-ship cruise missile which was fired from Yemen towards the Red Sea.

Police said that Sgt. First Class Ran Gvili was killed by Hamas on October 7 and his body was abducted to Gaza.

Gvili, who belonged to the Yasam patrol unit in Negev district, was killed in a battle against terrorists in the community of Alumim and his dead body was taken to the Gaza Strip.

His death was declared by the chief rabbi and a team of rabbinical and health experts, on the basis of updated findings and intelligence information.

- Israel has confirmed it has been flooding tunnels in Gaza with seawater for several weeks.

- Israel has issued evacuation orders for the west of Gaza City where the UN says 88,000 Palestinians are sheltering.

- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for major donors to resume funding the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees.

The tensions in West Asia continue to run high after three US troops were killed in Jordan, marking the first American fatalities since the region went into turmoil following the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas and the consequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza. 

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Just hours after militants of Hamas stormed across the border between  Israel and Gaza and massacred around 1,200 Israelis, Israeli warplanes began a bombing campaign that laid waste to entire cities and prompted charges of collective punishment. 

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Ashraf Al-Qedra , the spokesperson of the Hamas-run Health ministry in Gaza, on Tuesday said that the Israeli army killed 114 and wounded 249 others during the past 24 hours.

Al-Qedra emphasised a concerning escalation in Israel's blockade of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, located in the southern Gaza Strip. He said that this blockade has persisted for two consecutive weeks, and expressed alarm, stating that Israel "places 150 medical personnel, 450 wounded, and 3,000 displaced people under targeting."

Reuters reports that Al-Qedra also highlighted an imminent crisis at the medical complex, revealing that the electricity generators are at risk of shutting down within the next two days due to a shortage of fuel. 

The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry has reported that the death toll in Gaza has now reached 26,751, with an additional 65,636 people wounded, as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks since Oct. 7, 2023.

The funding halt for UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA will have "catastrophic consequences" for Gaza, said the heads of multiple UN bodies said in a joint statement, on Wednesday. 

"Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region," said the statement from heads of organisations that form the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

Nothing can "replace or substitute" the UNRWA staff who have been implicated based on Israel's accusations. The dispute escalated after Israel accused the UNRWA of allowing Hamas to use agency infrastructure in Gaza for military activity.

Israel has also vowed to stop the agency's work in Gaza after the war. 

The United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) said Israel has repeated new evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in western Gaza City where 88,000 displaced Palestinians had been living in shelters. 

The area which the Israeli forces have reportedly asked to evacuate, according to OCHA, also includes the Ash Shati Refugee camp which was home to nearly 300,000 Palestinians before October 7.

"The new order covered an area of 12.43 sq km, which amounts to 3.4 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip," said the UN agency in their daily update. 

Israel began issuing evacuation deadlines on December 1 which, according to OCHA, includes around "41 per cent of the Gaza Strip". 

Israel accused the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) of letting Hamas militants use its infrastructure in the Gaza Strip for military activity.

"UNRWA is a front for Hamas. It has been fundamentally compromised in three main ways: hiring terrorists on a massive scale, letting its infrastructure be used for Hamas military activity and relying on Hamas for aid distribution in the Gaza Strip," said Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy, in a video statement.

He also alleged that 10 per cent of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups without providing any evidence. He added, "It is not a neutral organisation."

The new allegations comes days after Israeli officials accused UNRWA employees of participating in October 7 attacks on Israel prompting several countries including the United States, Britain, Germany, and so on, to suspend funding to the agency.

Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired one anti-ship cruise missile from Yemen toward the Red Sea on Tuesday, the U.S. military's Central Command said, adding that a U.S. destroyer in the area shot it down.

No injuries or damage were reported, the Central Command said.

Source: Reuters

United States Joe Biden said he has made a decision had been made on the response to a drone attack that killed three American troops in Jordan. 

"It's very possible that what you'll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action but potentially multiple actions," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One. 

However, Biden had also said the US is "not looking for a wider war" in the Middle East nor confrontation with Iran.

The Israeli army, on Tuesday (Jan 30) said it is channelling water into Gaza’s tunnels in a bid to destroy the sprawling underground network used by the Palestinian militant group to launch attacks on Israel. 

"The IDF has implemented new capabilities during the war, with the aim of neutralizing underground terrorist infrastructure, including by channeling large volumes of water into them," said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in a statement on X. 

It added, "This method was developed in cooperation with (Israel's Ministry of Defense), and is only utilized in locations where it is suitable. The IDF takes into consideration the soil and water systems in the area, matching the method of operation to each specific case." 

They also went on to call it a "significant tool" in to combat the "hreat of Hamas’ underground terrorist infrastructure."