Nearly 400 members of UNRWA 's workforce in Gaza have been killed, with hundreds of premises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory made “inaccessible, severely damaged, or utterly destroyed” - Antonio Guterres warned at the UN General Assembly

https://x.com/UNGeneva/status/2103465868336173408

United Nations Geneva

@UNGeneva

Nearly 400 members of @UNRWA's workforce in #Gaza have been killed, with hundreds of premises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory made “inaccessible, severely damaged, or utterly destroyed” - @antonioguterres  warned at the UN General Assembly

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere] 

https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/09/1168428

UNRWA work and mandate in ‘jeopardy’, Guterres warns 

24 September 2026 Humanitarian Aid

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) continues to operate under “extraordinary pressure”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday. 

Speaking at the annual ministerial meeting on the agency's work during High-Level Week in New York, the UN chief maintained that nearly 400 members of UNRWA’s workforce in Gaza have been killed, with hundreds of premises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory made “inaccessible, severely damaged, or utterly destroyed”.

“These actions are wholly unacceptable and inconsistent with Israel’s obligations under international law, including the UN Charter,” he said. 

In a highly challenging environment, he said, UNRWA provides essential public services to Palestinians, however, its work and entire mandate from the General Assembly is now in “jeopardy”. 

Nearly two years ago, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation banning the UN agency from operating on Israeli territory – which included East Jerusalem – and cut off all cooperation between Israeli officials and UNRWA.

The Israeli Government seized and began demolition of UNRWA’s main compound in Jerusalem last January. The UN and multiple States maintain the punitive laws passed by parliament breach Israel’s obligations under the UN Charter and Security Council resolution 2730 on protection of humanitarian personnel. 

Campaign against the agency

According to the UN chief, the agency has been excluded from coordination meetings with Israeli authorities over humanitarian operations in Gaza and elsewhere, while staff visas are no longer being granted by Israel and personnel have been subject to intimidation. 

He added that UNRWA continues to face a severe financial crisis, “with a cash shortfall of $100 million”, putting operations at risk and threatening the welfare of millions of Palestinian refugees. 

Mr. Guterres called on Member States to take immediate action as UNRWA’s capacity to act was “seriously imperiled” and regional stability was at “stake”. 

© UNICEF A wounded woman and two children sit on a mattress amid rubble inside a damaged home in Burij, in the Gaza Strip.

‘Conditions remain intolerable’ 

He highlighted that continued Israeli attacks continue to kill an average of four people per day, “a quarter of them children”, while international law is being “brazenly violated”. 

“The resumption of assistance since the ceasefire was announced last October has brought some relief – but conditions remain intolerable,” Mr. Guterres said. 

He said settler attacks and efforts to expand settlements in the West Bank have pushed Palestinians to “breaking point” and posed a threat to the two-State solution. 

Amidst the volatility, he said, UNRWA remained a “critical stabilizing presence” and a lifeline for many Palestinian refugees. 

‘Levels unseen’ 

UNRWA’s Commissioner-General ad interim, Christian Saunders, said the agency’s more than 10,000 personnel in Gaza are still assisting 1.7 million people, including some 70,000 medical consultations a week. 

He said displacement in the West Bank was “at levels unseen since 1967”. 

Forty-one of the 50 recommendations of the independent neutrality review into UNRWA operations were fully implemented, the Commissioner-General said, and a “slimmer UNRWA” did not mean a change to its mandate.

The Commissioner-General said 94 per cent of people in Gaza lacked proper shelter and 98 per cent of households lived near environmental hazards such as raw sewage and rubble, with humanitarian partners warning of major gaps as winter approaches.

In occupied East Jerusalem, measures against UNRWA had culminated in the seizure of it headquarters, vocational training centre, schools and health facilities, he said, calling on Member States to advocate for the agency to be given “the space to operate” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in line with its mandate.

 General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman said humanitarian access was “non-negotiable” and called on Member States to build on the New York Declaration to implement the two-State solution, through implementation of Security Council Resolution 2803. 

Victim of ‘political assassination’

Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi, whose country co-hosted the meeting with Spain and Brazil, said UNRWA was “still the target of political assassination” despite the reforms it has carried out, and warned against any change to its mandate or transfer of its responsibilities to host countries.

Mr. Safadi said host countries “are already doing enough” and that UNRWA would only cease to be needed once a sovereign Palestinian State emerged.

Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares Bueno said Spain had committed more than €85 million to UNRWA over the past three years and urged other donors to follow. 

Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira condemned the closure and destruction of UNRWA premises in East Jerusalem and said the source of the agency’s crisis “is political”. 

Mr. Vieira said Brazil had proposed a working group on disinformation during its presidency of UNRWA’s Advisory Committee, and condemned plans to build military structures on the site of the agency’s compound in Sheikh Jarrah. 

https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/09/1168428

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

Experts say that after nearly three years of war, the environmental consequences of the destruction in Gaza are now spilling back into Israel.

A satellite view shows an algae bloom along Gaza’s coast to Ashdod in Israel. Photograph: Sentinal Hub/Copernicus.eu

Israel facing water shortages caused by destruction of Gaza’s treatment plants

Five desalination plants shut down for days, while Gaza remains in grip of severe water and sanitation crisis

Lorenzo Tondo in Jerualem and Seham Tantesh in Gaza

Thu 24 Sep 2026

Israel is facing weeks of water shortages after an exceptional algae bloom crippled much of its desalination capacity, in a crisis scientists say was triggered when Israeli attacks destroyed much of Gaza’s wastewater infrastructure, causing a massive discharge of untreated sewage.

“Pollution does not recognise political borders,” said the Zalul Environmental Association, an Israeli NGO dedicated to protecting the country’s seas and shores. “The discharge of untreated sewage from the Gaza Strip into the sea is contributing to the worsening crisis affecting the Israeli desalination facilities. The wastewater contains nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which feed microalgae and cyanobacteria and may intensify their blooms.”

Despite last year’s US-brokered ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by a severe water and sanitation crisis. The Palestinian territory is plagued by rodents, and sewage floods its coastline after Israel destroyed its wastewater treatment plants.

Just across the border, a vast bloom of microalgae stretching up to 60 miles (100km) long has clogged filters at five of Israel’s six main desalination plants, which were shut down for days and have since been operating at a reduced level.

Experts say that after nearly three years of war, the environmental consequences of the destruction in Gaza are now spilling back into Israel.

“The discharge of untreated sewage from Gaza into the sea increases risks to Israel’s water production infrastructure along the southern Mediterranean coast,” said Jack Gilron, a professor emeritus and desalination expert at Ben-Gurion University’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research. “The current incident reinforces the need to prepare against threats to one of Israel’s main sources of drinking water.”

Since 7 October 2023, Israeli bombardment has destroyed 90% of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure, according to a report by Médecins Sans Frontières. Direct strikes have been carried out on wells, carrier lines, reservoirs and desalination units.

Gaza’s water crisis remains severe. Before the war, 80% the territory’s supply came from an aquifer under the coastal strip, but that supply is now contaminated by seawater and wastewater and unfit for human consumption.

Most of Gaza’s drinking water came from desalination plants and three pipelines controlled by the Israeli water authority, but those pipelines were cut at the start of the war and have only partially reopened.

Meanwhile, damaged or destroyed distribution networks have left much of the population reliant on water trucks.

For many, this means a stark choice between drinking an extra cup of water or saving it to wash their hands and prevent disease... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/24/israel-water-shortages-destruction-gaza-treatment-plants-pollution-sanitation-crisis

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

From Spain to Netherlands to UK: Israel exploits Gaza aid coordination to entrench occupation and settlements- Israel leverages its control over humanitarian aid coordination, which is an international legal obligation meant to assist civilians, to blackmail, punish, and isolate states

U.S. Army personnel, Israeli Army personnel and other international officials monitor screens displaying maps and imagery of the Gaza Strip during a media tour inside the Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) on 20 November 2025, in Kiryat Gat, Israel. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

09 Sep 2026 

Geneva - Israel’s decision to exclude the UK from the International Gaza Support Center (IGSC) in Kiryat Gat, formerly known as the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), once again highlights that the centre, similar to all other initiatives derived from Trump’s Gaza plan, is not autonomous from Israel’s occupation system or political interests.

Israel, which has effective control over aid access in Gaza, also manages which parties participate in coordination, treating membership in the centre as a privilege that it grants or revokes based on countries’ stances on its policies.

The US-led centre, involving representatives from around 50 countries and an international organisation, was created to oversee the ceasefire, coordinate aid delivery, and set up post-war arrangements in the Gaza Strip. However, Israel barred Spain’s representatives from participating in April and then barred the Netherlands’ representatives in August. Both actions were reportedly linked to the respective governments’ stances towards Israel and its policies, especially the Netherlands’ decision to ban imports of settlement products.

This sequence of events shows that Israel leverages its control over humanitarian aid coordination, which is an international legal obligation meant to assist civilians based on need and without political strings, to blackmail, punish, and isolate states. It makes aid participation dependent on governments’ adherence to Israeli policies, transforming what should be a system for fulfilling legal responsibilities into a means of oppressing the Palestinian people and undermining their fundamental rights to life, food, water, health, and dignity.

As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under Articles 55, 56, and 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the population; maintain health services; approve relief efforts; and facilitate them through all available means. The establishment of the IGSC does not relieve Israel of these duties nor shift them to the participating states, in accordance with Article 60 of the Convention.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed in its advisory opinion on 22 October 2025 that Israel must approve relief schemes carried out by the United Nations and its agencies, including UNRWA, and support their implementation without hindrance. Security concerns do not justify arbitrary, unnecessary, or disproportionate restrictions, nor should they delay or obstruct aid delivery or politicise the entities responsible for coordinating it.

The decision against the UK came as part of a set of retaliatory actions by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, following the UK’s, France’s, and Canada’s ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. These measures involved closing the British consulate in East Jerusalem, halting British training programmes for Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank, and prohibiting 12 elected British officials and other British citizens from entering Israel.

This repeated cycle of retaliations undermines international efforts to coordinate around Gaza and shows that the agreements associated with Trump’s plan function within Israel’s control system. They offer no independent assurance of aid delivery, civilian safety, or violation oversight, nor do they limit Israel’s capacity to carry on with acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip.

This strategy extends beyond the centre in Kiryat Gat. It is part of a larger effort to dismantle the independent relief system in the occupied Palestinian territory, bringing it under Israeli control. Israeli authorities have barred UNRWA staff from entering the territory, limited the agency’s activities and access to facilities and large areas, and instructed 37 international NGOs to cease operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Additionally, they have prevented some international staff from these organisations from entering the area.

These actions, along with the politicisation of the IGSC, show that Israel is not just regulating humanitarian efforts but actively restructuring them to suit its needs. Access to the population and humanitarian activities now depend on compliance with its unilateral political and security directives, excluding organisations that remain independent or oppose its policies. Consequently, independent international institutions are being dismantled and replaced by structures authorised by Israel, which oversees their membership, operations, and information dissemination.

Allowing Israel to decide the centre’s role jeopardises more than just aid coordination; it risks shaping post-war arrangements in Gaza. If Israel can select participating states and exclude those opposing its occupation, the centre might become a means for influencing Gaza’s future governance, security, and reconstruction, without the Palestinian people’s consent.

Linking relief coordination to political motives can lead to individual criminal responsibility, especially if it involves intentionally depriving civilians of essentials like food, medicine, water, and fuel. Such actions, when used as a tactic of starvation in warfare and aimed at destroying Palestinians in whole or in part by creating deadly living conditions, qualify as acts of genocide.

All states, based on their actual influence, should promptly act, individually and collectively, to pressure Israel into halting the genocide in the Gaza Strip. This includes stopping all related acts such as killing Palestinians, causing serious physical or mental harm, deliberately creating conditions aimed at their physical destruction, and measures like preventing births and forcibly transferring children. Israel must cease starvation, forced displacement, systematic destruction, and other crimes associated with genocide.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor urges the immediate and complete lifting of Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip, as well as the permanent opening of all crossings to facilitate the swift and unrestricted flow of aid, goods, fuel, medicines, and reconstruction supplies, ensuring they are delivered promptly and in adequate quantities without arbitrary restrictions or political conditions.... READ MORE  https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/7102/From-Spain-to-Netherlands-to-UK:-Israel-exploits-Gaza-aid-coordination-to-entrench-occupation-and-settlements

 AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

"Our sanctions aren’t about the Israeli people, but about the unacceptable policies of the Israeli government, and the suffering they cause Palestinians" Andy Burnham, prime minister of the United Kingdom

The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a nearby medical supplies and pharmaceuticals warehouse belonging to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, 1 August 2026. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Opinion 

Palestine 

I believe in a two-state solution in the Middle East. That’s why we’re taking action to keep that hope alive

Andy Burnham

 

Tue 8 Sep 2026

In a difficult and dangerous world, a decade on from Brexit, there is a risk that Britain loses the confidence to lead and stand up for its values. I’m not prepared to let that happen. It is more important than ever that Britain stands for something.

We have called for years for a two-state solution in the Middle East, but we must recognise that those words are meaningless unless we back them up with action.

For too long, we have been hesitant to act, fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel. Today we are announcing carefully judged, targeted steps that are not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the unacceptable policies of the current Israeli government.

The suffering of the Palestinian people is a scar on the conscience of the world. Innocent Palestinians, including children, continue to be killed in Gaza. And there is still a humanitarian crisis, with far too little aid getting in.

The scale of destruction is hard to comprehend. More than 70,000 people lie dead – at least 20,000 of them children. Families and communities have been torn apart. Millions displaced. And the population of Gaza is now penned into just one third of the territory.

I know that people across the UK feel very deeply about this issue – and... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/08/uk-sanctions-israel-two-state-solution-middle-east-palestinians-andy-burnham

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]  

AMERICAN DOCTOR: ‘Can we accept what we have done or not done?’: harrowing film follows doctors in Gaza. American Doctor follows three volunteer doctors as they try to save lives on the frontline and then return to the US to become advocates in congress

"... But the moral weight of American Doctor lies not just in its depiction of Gaza but its unflinching examination of the political and media machinery that enables it." 

Feroze Sidhwa in American Doctor.

Photograph: Watermelon Pictures

When she wanted to confront Americans about the consequences of their actions – or inactions – in Gaza, Poh Si Teng reached for a genre with mass popular appeal: the medical drama.

“Whether it’s The Pitt, Grey’s Anatomy, House, ER, even a comedy like Scrubs, you name it,” the documentary film-maker says via Zoom from her New York apartment. “I thought to myself, there’s something about medical dramas and doctors and human mortality in this space so let’s make The Pitt. The difference is it’s real and it’s set in Gaza and maybe this is the way to bring Palestine back to the United States.”

The result is American Doctor, a 93-minute film directed by Teng and co-produced with Kirstine Barfod and Reem Haddad, which premiered at the Sundance film festival and is out now in US cinemas.

The documentary follows three doctors from different cultural and religious backgrounds – Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American emergency doctor; Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina; and Feroze Sidhwa, a Zoroastrian trauma surgeon based in California – as they volunteer on the frontlines of Gaza’s collapsing hospital system.

They return to the US as advocates in the halls of Congress, which continues to send military aid to Israel. The film highlights the unique position of American doctors as witnesses whose professional standing makes their testimony difficult for politicians and even rightwing media to dismiss as propaganda.

The journey of Teng to making the film began in the fall of 2024, a year into the military campaign in Gaza. The Malaysian-American had spent years as a producer, documentary commissioning editor for Al Jazeera English and creative director at ABC/Disney but felt suffocated by the professional and political silence surrounding what she does not hesitate to call a genocide.

 “I was so frustrated and it felt like nothing was changing,” the 41-year-old explains. “In our journalism circles, even though we were seeing so many Gazan journalists being targeted and executed, it felt like in the western part of the world – specifically where I was situated in New York – that people were still whispering about Palestine... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/17/gaza-doctor-documentary

 AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]