Aid situation ‘remains catastrophic’ – WHO says little improvement in amount going into Gaza since ceasefire
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that there has been little improvement in the amount of aid going into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold – and no observable reduction in hunger.
Speaking on Thursday, WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the aid situation in Gaza “remains catastrophic” and “there is not enough food” for those in the territory. He said:
The situation still remains catastrophic because what’s entering is not enough … there is no dent in hunger because there is not enough food.
On Wednesday, the UN’s top court said that Israel must allow aid into Gaza, and found that its restrictions on doing so over the past two years had put it in breach of its obligations.
In the advisory opinion by the international court of justice in The Hague, aid levels were found to have remained inadequate.
A week ago, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that it had brought about 560 tonnes of food a day on average into Gaza since the ceasefire began, but it was still below what was needed. Its spokesperson Abeer Etefa said:
We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance.
During the war, Israel shut down entry and exit routes, largely blocking off food and medicine, which in turn caused a famine in parts of Gaza.
The UN said it would take time to reverse the famine in Gaza and urged the opening of all crossing points.
More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other main developments:
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In a joint statement carried by Saudi state media on Thursday, more than a dozen such states including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey condemned the Israeli parliament’s vote on West Bank annexation. Arab and Muslim countries, which the US has been courting to provide troops and money for a stabilisation force in Gaza – a key element of Trump’s ceasefire plan – have warned that annexation of the West Bank is a red line.
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The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered a halt to the advancement of parliamentary bills linked to the annexation of the West Bank after the US vice-president, JD Vance, described a vote on two bills in the Knesset as an “insult”. Seperately, when asked on Thursday if he was concerned by the votes, US president Donald Trump told reporters at the White House: “Don’t worry about the West Bank. Israel’s not going to do anything with the West Bank.”
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US secretary of state Marco Rubio, one of a string of top US officials to visit Israel in recent days, had warned before his arrival that the annexation moves were “threatening” to the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, but he expressed confidence in the truce after meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday. “We feel confident and positive about the progress that’s being made. We’re clear-eyed about the challenges, too,” said Rubio.
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Netanyahu, standing next to Rubio after their meeting on Thursday, was quick to avoid any suggestion of tension with Washington, calling the secretary an “extraordinary friend of Israel” and saying that the back-to-back visits were part of a “circle of trust and partnership”.
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Gaza’s Nasser hospital said that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on Thursday in the Khan Younis area. Residents reported almost constant heavy gunfire and tank shelling in eastern areas of Khan Younis and also east of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian territory overnight into Thursday, reported Reuters.
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A human rights group has launched an attempt to mount a private prosecution alleging British citizens unlawfully went to fight for Israel. An application to a magistrates court for a summons against a named individual was lodged on Monday.
Key events
Vance says Knesset votes on annexing West Bank are an ‘insult’ as Netanyahu halts progress
Lorenzo Tondo
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered a halt to the advancement of parliamentary bills linked to the annexation of the West Bank after the US vice-president, JD Vance, described a vote on two bills in the Knesset as an “insult”.
The bills applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, which would be tantamount to the annexation of land Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, barely a week after Donald Trump pushed through a deal aimed at ending a two-year Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Asked by reporters about the vote at the end of a two-day visit to Israel, Vance said:
If it was a political stunt, it is a very stupid one, and I personally take some insult to it.
The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of President Trump is that the West Bank will not be annexed. This will always be our policy.
On Thursday afternoon, Ofir Katz, the chair of Israel’s coalition government, said Netanyahu had instructed him not to advance bills pertaining to annexation, and Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday’s vote had been a “deliberate political provocation” that aimed to sow division during Vance’s visit.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, landed in Israel on Thursday, becoming the latest in a string of US officials to visit the country to shore up the Gaza ceasefire. He described any plan to extend Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory as “potentially threatening for the peace deal”.
“They’re a democracy, they’re going to have their votes, and people are going to take these positions,” Rubio said. “But at this time, it’s something that we … think might be counterproductive.”
Home to 2.7 million Palestinians, the West Bank has long been at the heart of plans for a future nation existing alongside Israel, but settlements have expanded rapidly, fragmenting the land, reports Reuters.
Palestinians and most nations regard settlements as illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this.
Olives are the backbone of Palestinian agriculture, a sector which accounts for about 8% of GDP and more than 60,000 jobs, according to the Palestinian Authority’s agriculture ministry.
A few kilometres from Turmus Ayya lies the village of al-Mughayyir, where 55-year-old Afaf Abu Alia from. Abu Alia and her family came to Turmus Ayya because settlers cut down their orchard of about 500 olive trees near al-Mughayyir a few weeks earlier, according to a relative. In return for harvesting the olives, the family would receive a share of the crop, reports Reuters.
The Israeli military said they cut down over 3,000 trees in the area “to improve defences”, although locals say the real number is higher.
A combination of military orders and settler violence has left villagers unable to access most of their crops. Marzook Abu Naem, a local council member, told Reuters that settlers and military orders had almost totally blocked access to olive groves. The economic impact meant some young people were delaying university and meat had become a luxury for many, he said.
The agriculture ministry recorded a 17% increase in financial losses for West Bank farmers from the start of 2025 until mid-October, compared with the same period last year.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) says more than 15,000 trees have been attacked since October 2024.
At least 158 Israeli settler attacks recorded since start of olive harvest in occupied West Bank, says CWRC
While mediators try to bolster a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, intensified Israeli settler violence targeting the Palestinian olive harvest in the occupied West Bank has continued unabated, according to Palestinian and UN officials.
Since the harvest began in the first week of October, there have been at least 158 attacks across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to figures made public by the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC).
There was a 13% rise in settler attacks in the first two weeks of the 2025 harvest compared with the same period in 2024, said Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN’s human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Activists and farmers say the violence has intensified since the Hamas-led attacks that triggered the war in Gaza two years ago, reports Reuters. They say settlers target olive trees because Palestinians see them as a symbol of their connection to the land. Adham al-Rabia, a Palestinian activist, said:
The olive tree is a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness.
The UN’s Sunghay said that this season settlers had burned groves, chain-sawed olive trees, and destroyed homes and agricultural infrastructure. According to Reuters, in a regular update on the olive harvest season on Tuesday, Sunghay said:
Settler violence has skyrocketed in scale and frequency, with the acquiescence, support, and in many cases participation, of Israeli security forces – and always with impunity.
The Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, which governs Israeli West Bank settlements in the region of Turmus Ayya, said it condemned “every instance of violence that occurs” in the area. It said that settlers carried weapons “intended solely for self-defence”.
Many Palestinians, as well as Israeli human rights groups, believe the army has abetted settler attacks. The Israeli military did not respond to Reuter’s request for comment on the claim.
Turkey’s Erdoğan says US and others must press Israel to abide by Gaza ceasefire
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the United States and others must do more to push Israel to stop violating the Gaza ceasefire agreement, including the possible use of sanctions or halting arms sales.
According to an official readout of his remarks to reporters on board a return flight from Oman, Erdoğan said the Palestinian militant group Hamas was abiding by the agreement. He added that Turkey remains ready to support the planned Gaza taskforce in any way needed.
Sirens that sounded in communities near Gaza early on Friday were determined to be a false identification, the Israeli military said in a statement, reports Reuters.
Earlier, the military had said that “details were under review” after the sirens sounded.
Palestine rights group seeks prosecution of UK citizens who fought for Israel
Patrick Wintour
A human rights group has launched an attempt to mount a private prosecution alleging British citizens unlawfully went to fight for Israel.
An application to a magistrates court for a summons against a named individual was lodged on Monday.
The highly unusual prosecution is being brought by the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP). The human rights group intends to argue in court that named Britons joined a foreign army at war with a state, Palestine, which the b was not fighting.
It claims that waging war with a foreign force is a breach of section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870. The act makes it an offence for any person to accept or agree a commission or engagement in the military service of any foreign state at war with another foreign state that is at peace with the UK government.
The ICJP has named one individual in the attempted prosecution but has gathered evidence against more than 10 British citizens.
To enhance the prospects of a successful prosecution and prevent the case being prejudiced, the ICJP is not naming the individuals they want to be arrested.
The ICJP accuses the Israel Defense Forces of conducting a war that is not confined to Hamas but is against all Palestinians and Palestine itself, a state now recognised by the UK.
The group says it needs to prove the defendant is a British subject, accepted a commission or engagement in the Israeli armed forces, that Israel was at war with Palestine, that Palestine is a foreign state and finally that Palestine was at peace with the UK.
Aid situation ‘remains catastrophic’ – WHO says little improvement in amount going into Gaza since ceasefire
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that there has been little improvement in the amount of aid going into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold – and no observable reduction in hunger.
Speaking on Thursday, WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the aid situation in Gaza “remains catastrophic” and “there is not enough food” for those in the territory. He said:
The situation still remains catastrophic because what’s entering is not enough … there is no dent in hunger because there is not enough food.
On Wednesday, the UN’s top court said that Israel must allow aid into Gaza, and found that its restrictions on doing so over the past two years had put it in breach of its obligations.
In the advisory opinion by the international court of justice in The Hague, aid levels were found to have remained inadequate.
A week ago, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that it had brought about 560 tonnes of food a day on average into Gaza since the ceasefire began, but it was still below what was needed. Its spokesperson Abeer Etefa said:
We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance.
During the war, Israel shut down entry and exit routes, largely blocking off food and medicine, which in turn caused a famine in parts of Gaza.
The UN said it would take time to reverse the famine in Gaza and urged the opening of all crossing points.
More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other main developments:
-
In a joint statement carried by Saudi state media on Thursday, more than a dozen such states including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey condemned the Israeli parliament’s vote on West Bank annexation. Arab and Muslim countries, which the US has been courting to provide troops and money for a stabilisation force in Gaza – a key element of Trump’s ceasefire plan – have warned that annexation of the West Bank is a red line.
-
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered a halt to the advancement of parliamentary bills linked to the annexation of the West Bank after the US vice-president, JD Vance, described a vote on two bills in the Knesset as an “insult”. Seperately, when asked on Thursday if he was concerned by the votes, US president Donald Trump told reporters at the White House: “Don’t worry about the West Bank. Israel’s not going to do anything with the West Bank.”
-
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, one of a string of top US officials to visit Israel in recent days, had warned before his arrival that the annexation moves were “threatening” to the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, but he expressed confidence in the truce after meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday. “We feel confident and positive about the progress that’s being made. We’re clear-eyed about the challenges, too,” said Rubio.
-
Netanyahu, standing next to Rubio after their meeting on Thursday, was quick to avoid any suggestion of tension with Washington, calling the secretary an “extraordinary friend of Israel” and saying that the back-to-back visits were part of a “circle of trust and partnership”.
-
Gaza’s Nasser hospital said that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on Thursday in the Khan Younis area. Residents reported almost constant heavy gunfire and tank shelling in eastern areas of Khan Younis and also east of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian territory overnight into Thursday, reported Reuters.
-
A human rights group has launched an attempt to mount a private prosecution alleging British citizens unlawfully went to fight for Israel. An application to a magistrates court for a summons against a named individual was lodged on Monday.
