A senior UN official on Wednesday urged the Security Council to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages, warning that the war has become “a nightmare of historic proportions” and it is “long past time” for the fighting to end and for hostages to return home.Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, told ministers and ambassadors that ongoing talks must lead to a permanent end to hostilities, the release of all hostages, unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid and for recovery and reconstruction to begin.He painted a grim picture of conditions on the ground, citing expanded Israeli military operations, particularly in Deir Al-Balah, which have led to further mass displacement.UN premises were also struck, hampering humanitarian operations and exacerbating the already dire situation.Humanitarian toll deepensAt least 1,891 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 30 June, according to figures from the local health authorities, including 294 people reportedly killed while attempting to collect aid near militarised distribution points.  Evacuation orders continue to force repeated displacement while food insecurity and malnutrition are worsening despite a limited uptick in the entry of humanitarian supplies.On the Israeli side, 13 soldiers have been killed in the same period. Palestinian armed groups have continued sporadic rocket attacks into Israel. According to Israeli sources, 50 hostages, including 28 believed to be dead, are still being held by Hamas and other groups.“The Secretary-General has repeatedly condemned the continued holding of hostages by Hamas and other armed groups,” Mr. Khiari stressed. “Hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally.” Places of worship struckThe briefing also highlighted growing concerns about civilian casualties and attacks on protected sites.  Mr. Khiari condemned a 17 July strike on the Catholic Church of the Holy Family in Gaza City, which killed three and injured several others. The strike forced the evacuation of roughly 600 Palestinians, including children and persons with special needs, who had been sheltering there.The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office expressed regret, describing the strike as the result of “stray ammunition” and said an investigation was underway, Mr. Khiari reported.Dire fuel shortagesSince 9 July, Israel has allowed limited fuel deliveries through the Kerem Shalom/Karim Abu Salem crossing after 130 days of a full blockade.However, the amount is “a fraction of what is required to run essential life-saving services in Gaza, where nearly every aspect of life depends on fuel”, Mr. Khiari warned.Occupied West BankTurning to the occupied West Bank, Mr. Khiari reported high levels of violence, including deadly Israeli military operations, attacks by settlers on Palestinians and retaliatory attacks by Palestinians against Israelis.He noted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is facing a severe fiscal crisis, with $2.7 billion in withheld clearance revenues, crippling its ability to pay salaries and provide basic services.“Unless urgently addressed, the deterioration of the PA’s fiscal and institutional situation could have catastrophic consequences, undermining the significant progress made over many years to build up Palestinian institutions,” he warned, urging immediate international support.Tensions in the wider regionMr. Khiari also highlighted continued tensions along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel as well as renewed violence in Syria’s Sweida region and Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory.He urged both Israel and Syria to adhere to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement and to avoid any actions that risk escalating the conflict.Call for a political horizonMr. Khiari concluded by reiterating that only a revived political process towards the two-State solution can deliver a sustainable solution.“Our goal is clear: realising the vision of two States – Israel and a viable and sovereign Palestinian State of which Gaza is an integral part – living side by side in peace and security within secure and recognised borders on the basis of the pre-1967 lines with Jerusalem as the capital of both States,” he said.

Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in the Gaza Strip who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said. “Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them UNRWA staff, are hungry…fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” said Juliette Touma, Director of Communications with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. Speaking from Amman, she stressed that seeking food “has become as deadly as the bombardments”.The development comes as the UN human rights office, OHCHR, announced on Tuesday that more than 1,000 Palestinians have now been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food in the Strip since the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operating on 27 May. “As of 21 July, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food,” said OHCHR spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan. “766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near UN and other humanitarian organizations’ aid convoys.” Mr. Al-Kheetan noted that the finding came from “multiple reliable sources on the ground, including medical teams, humanitarian and human rights organizations. It is still being verified in line with our strict methodology.”The foundation’s hubs are supported by the US and Israeli authorities and started operating in southern Gaza on 27 May, bypassing the UN and other established non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Aid relief is not a job for mercenaries“The so-called GHF distribution scheme is a sadistic death-trap,” UNRWA’s Ms. Touma said. “Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they're given a license to kill.” Quoting a statement by UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini, Ms. Touma called the scheme a “massive hunt of people in total impunity”.“This cannot be our new norm. Humanitarian assistance is not the job of mercenaries,” she added.The UNRWA spokesperson insisted that the UN and its humanitarian partners have the expertise, experience and available resources to provide safe, dignified and at-scale assistance. “We have proven it time and again during the last ceasefire,” she said.Living conditions in the Strip have reached a new low as prices for basic commodities have increased by around 4,000 per cent. For Gaza’s inhabitants who have lost their homes and been displaced multiple times, they have no income and find themselves completely deprived of essentials. $200 for a bag of flourMs. Touma highlighted the testimony of a colleague on the ground who had to walk for hours to buy a bag of lentils and some flour, paying almost $200 for it. On Monday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that a quarter of Gaza’s population faces famine-like conditions. Almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible.Vital everyday items such as diapers are scarce and costly, at about $3 each. Mothers have resorted to using plastic bags instead while one father “said that he had to cut one of his last shirts to give his daughter sanitary pads”, Ms. Touma said.“We at UNRWA have stocks of hygiene supplies, including diapers for babies and for adults waiting outside the gates of Gaza,” Ms. Touma stressed, insisting that the agency has 6,000 trucks loaded with food, medicines and hygiene supplies waiting in Egypt and in Jordan to be allowed into the enclave.Urgent ceasefire callShe reiterated the UN’s calls for “a deal that would bring a ceasefire, that would release the hostages, that would bring in a standard flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza under the management of the United Nations, including UNRWA.”Humanitarian operations in the enclave are being pushed into an “ever-shrinking space”, said World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jašarević.Briefing journalists in Geneva, he condemned three attacks on Monday on a building housing WHO staff in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza as well as the “mistreatment of those sheltering there and the destruction of its main warehouse”.“Staff and their families, including children, were exposed to grave danger and traumatised after airstrikes caused a fire and significant damage,” Mr. Jašarević said, adding that Israeli military entered the premises, “forcing women and children to evacuate on foot” towards the coastal shelter of Al Mawasi amid active conflict.  Screened at gunpointThe WHO spokesperson said that staff and family members were “handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot and screened at gunpoint”. Two staff and two family members were detained and while three were later released, one WHO employee remains in detention for reasons unknown to the organization.Mr. Jašarević called for the release of the detained staff member and insisted that “no one should be held without charges and without due process.”The latest evacuation order for the area has impacted several WHO premises and compromised its presence on the ground, “crippling efforts to sustain a collapsing health system,” Mr. Jašarević added, and “pushing survival further out of reach for more than two million people”. The Israeli military operation in Deir Al-Balah on Monday also caused an explosion and fire inside WHO’s main warehouse, which is located within the evacuation zone in the central Gazan city, “part of a pattern of systematic destruction of health facilities”, the agency’s spokesperson said.According to Gaza’s health authorities, since the start of the war in October 2023, some 1,500 health workers have been killed in the Strip. Some 94 per cent of all health facilities have been damaged and half of Gaza’s hospitals are “not functional at all”, Mr. Jašarević said. “The chance to prevent loss of lives and reverse immense damage to the health system slips further out of reach every day,” he stressed.Visa denials Spotlighting further challenges to the humanitarian operation in Gaza, the WHO spokesperson pointed to an increase in the denial of visas by Israeli authorities for emergency medical teams seeking to enter the Strip since the breakdown of the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on 18 March. He said that 58 international staff for the emergency medical teams, including surgeons and critical medical specialists, have been denied access.UNRWA’s Ms. Touma highlighted the fact that ever since the agency’s Commissioner-General was denied entry to Gaza in March 2024, he has not been allowed back into the Strip. He has also not received a visa from Israel to enter the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for more than a year. The UNRWA spokesperson also deplored the lack of access for international media to the enclave. “It certainly is time, if not long overdue, for international media to go into Gaza precisely to look into the facts and to help with reporting first-hand information on the horrors that people in Gaza are living through,” she said. Critical lifelines collapsingUN humanitarians continue to highlight the rapid collapse of critical lifelines in Gaza amid ongoing hostilities.Local authorities said more than a dozen children and adults died from hunger in the past 24 hours, UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported on Tuesday.“Hospitals have admitted people in a state of severe exhaustion caused by a lack of food, and others are said to be collapsing in the streets,” it said.“This is on top of continued reports of people being shot, killed or injured while simply trying to find food – food that is only being allowed into Gaza in quantities that are far too small.”Furthermore, in many cases where UN teams are permitted by Israel to collect supplies from closed compounds near border crossings, civilians approaching the trucks come under fire, despite repeated assurances that troops would not be present or engage.OCHA said “this unacceptable pattern is the opposite of what facilitating humanitarian operations should look like,” underscoring that “absolutely no one should have to risk their life to get food.” 

“Every day brings more preventable deaths, displacement and desperation,” the agency said in a humanitarian update.On Friday, Israeli authorities issued another displacement order, this time for parts of North Gaza.OCHA said it continues to receive deeply troubling reports of malnourished children and adults being admitted to hospitals with insufficient resources available to treat them.Fuel crisis deepensThe energy crisis in Gaza is also deepening, despite the resumption of limited fuel imports as the quantities that are entering – while critical for continuity – “remain at lower levels than what we were previously able to extract from dwindling internal reserves, which have now been fully depleted”.The situation has forced solid waste collection to be paused in recent days, and additional wells have had to shut down, particularly in Deir Al-Balah.“While specific health services, including dialysis, have reduced or shut down, others could go on for a few more days before they too will have to go dark,” OCHA warned.“With every day that passes, people have less clean water and healthcare and more sewage flooding ground floors.”Since the limited entry of fuel entry supplies resumed on 9 July, the UN has managed to send just over 600,000 litres of diesel to Kerem Shalom. On Thursday,it was able to send 35,000 litres of much-needed benzene for the first time.OCHA said these volumes are limited because Israel has allowed only 14 trucks over the past week. The agency stressed that to maintain lifesaving operations, hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel are needed every day. The limited fuel currently entering is primarily allocated to health, water and communications services as well as to power vehicles.Humanitarian movements curtailedHumanitarian movements inside Gaza also continue to be restricted.On Thursday, seven out of 13 attempts to coordinate the movement of aid workers and supplies with the Israeli authorities were facilitated.Teams were able to retrieve some fuel, collect some water, relocate generators, provide supplies related to hygiene and sanitation and transfer much-needed medical supplies.The six remaining attempts were either outright denied or approved initially, but then faced obstacles on the ground.End international media banMeanwhile, the head of the UN Palestine refugee agency UNRWA called on Friday for the ban on international media entering Gaza to be lifted.“650 days of atrocities against civilians with no international media allowed in,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote in social media post, adding that over 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed during this time.“Media ban fuels dis-information campaigns questioning first-hand data and accounts from eyewitnesses and international humanitarian organizations,” he said.

Three people were killed and at least 10 others were injured in the bombing of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, according to media reports.Stephanie Tremblay, a spokesperson for the Secretary-General, noted that the church was both a place of worship and a sanctuary for civilians.“Attacks on places of worship are unacceptable. People seeking shelter must be respected and protected, not hit by strikes,” she said during the daily media briefing from New York.“Too many lives have already been lost,” she added, before stressing the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.Strikes continue amid widespread displacement Meanwhile, Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours have hit sites hosting displaced Palestinians, some of whom were injured and killed.The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that more than 11,500 people in Gaza were newly displaced between 8-15 July.Overall, more than 737,000 people have been uprooted since the latest escalation of hostilities on 18 March, or roughly 35 per cent of the population.Furthermore, nearly everyone in Gaza has been displaced, in many cases multiple times, since the war began in October 2023.Ms. Tremblay reminded journalists that most housing in Gaza is flattened or otherwise unhabitable and families are staying in the open because the UN has not been allowed to bring in tents and other shelter materials since early March.Mediterranean swimming banShe also highlighted a “worrying development” as humanitarians report that many displaced people are wary of bathing in the Mediterranean Sea after Israel reinstated a ban prohibiting swimming and fishing.“OCHA says that for many, the sea has been their only option to wash, as there is barely any functioning water infrastructure and almost no fuel to pump water, a much-needed outlet in the hot weather in Gaza,” she explained. More fuel neededHumanitarians also continue to report that the amount of fuel Israel is allowing into Gaza is still nowhere enough to keep life-saving services operating and shutdowns are a real risk. Ms. Tremblay mentioned “a small but important step” that occurred on Thursday, as the UN was finally allowed to bring in some benzene – used to power ambulances and other critical services - for the first time in more than 135 days.“That’s in addition to the limited amounts of diesel allowed over the past week. But it’s not enough,” she said.“We are calling for more fuel – both benzene and diesel – to come in regularly. And the ban on shelter materials needs to be lifted immediately. Lives depend on both.”