UN agency head calls for temporary truce in northern Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency called on Tuesday for a temporary truce to allow people to leave areas of northern Gaza as health officials said they were running out of supplies to treat patients hurt in a three-week-old Israeli offensive.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA relief agency, said the humanitarian situation had reached a dire point, with bodies abandoned by roadsides or buried under rubble.

"In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die," he said in a statement on X. "They feel deserted, hopeless and alone."

"I am calling for an immediate truce, even if for a few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area & reach safer places," he said.

The call came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to try to revive Gaza ceasefire talks following the death last week of Yahya Sinwar, leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas that runs the enclave.

Washington has called on Israel to allow more humanitarian supplies into northern Gaza and Israel says aid has been delivered in scores of trucks as well as air drops but Gaza medics say the aid has not reached them.

On Tuesday, Gaza health officials said more than 20 people had been killed by Israeli forces. Dozens of bodies of people killed by Israeli fire were on roadsides and under rubble. Rescue teams could not reach them because of ongoing strikes, they said.

"Many wounded have died before our eyes and we couldn't do anything for them," said Munir Al-Bursh, the director of the Gaza health ministry, who is currently in northern Gaza.

"Hospitals also ran out of coffins to prepare the dead and we have asked people to donate any fabric they have at home," he said in a statement.

The Israeli military, which launched an offensive against Hamas militants holding out in the northern town of Jabalia this month, says it is evacuating people along designated routes and has filtered out dozens of militants from civilians going south.

Israeli drones circled overhead, calling on Palestinians to evacuate areas around the town of Beit Lahiya, just north of Jabalia where the offensive began earlier this month.

Many Palestinians fear the evacuation orders are part of an Israeli plan to clear the area to create a buffer zone that will enable Israel to control Gaza after the war.

The Israeli military denies the evacuations are part of a wider plan, saying it is moving people to separate them from Hamas fighters.

It said troops had dismantled tunnels and other Hamas infrastructure in Beit Lahiya. Local people said fighting appeared to be confined to hit-and-run attacks by small groups of Hamas militants, "not actual fighting or equal combat," one Palestinian in the area said via a messaging app.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they have attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire.

GAZA DEVELOPMENT KNOCKED BACK BY 70 YEARS, SAYS UN

The war in Gaza has devastated the Palestinian economy, which is now 35% smaller than it was at the start of Israel's invasion a year ago, the United Nations' development agency said on Tuesday.

UNDP said quality of life indicators such as health and education had been knocked back 70 years to the 1950s.

In northern Gaza, residents said Israeli forces had besieged hospitals, schools, and other shelters housing displaced families and ordered them to leave and head south. They said forces detained dozens of men.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed dozens of residents fleeing their area, carrying some of their belongings.

Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said medical services had completely collapsed.

"There are no blood units or tubes to drain bleeding from the chest. Most of the medical supplies are not available," he said in a statement.

"People around the hospital are being asked to evacuate, and those who evacuated were shot on the way...the situation is more than catastrophic."

The death toll in more than a year of war in Gaza is approaching 43,000, according to the latest health ministry figures, and most of the 2.3 million population is displaced, many in makeshift shelters.

The Israeli offensive was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages into Gaza.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-MughrabiEditing by Ros Russell)