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UN Aid Chief to Travel to Region to Assist in Gaza Aid Negotiations 

A UN-flagged fuel truck moves towards border crossing, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2023. (Reuters)
A UN-flagged fuel truck moves towards border crossing, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2023. (Reuters)
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UN Aid Chief to Travel to Region to Assist in Gaza Aid Negotiations 

A UN-flagged fuel truck moves towards border crossing, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2023. (Reuters)
A UN-flagged fuel truck moves towards border crossing, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2023. (Reuters)

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Monday he would be travelling to the Middle East to support negotiations on getting aid into the blockaded Gaza Strip. 

Griffiths said his office was in "deep discussions" with Israel, Egypt and others. 

"I shall be going myself tomorrow to the region to try to help in the negotiations, to try to bear witness and to express solidarity with the extraordinary courage of the many thousands of aid workers who have stayed the course and who are still there helping the people in Gaza and in the West Bank," he said in a statement. 

A spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office said Griffiths was planning to be in Cairo on Tuesday and would travel to other locations in the region on a trip expected to last several days. 

The fate of aid deliveries and limited evacuations through the only entry to Gaza not controlled by Israel remained in doubt after Egyptian sources said a temporary truce was struck but Israel and Hamas said no deal was in place. 

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Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
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Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah group that battered the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday was on his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers under the US-brokered deal are expected to gradually deploy, with Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops both expected to withdraw by the end of next month, The Associated Press said.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy's (Israel's) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can carry out its tasks in full.”
The Lebanese military for years has relied on financial aid to stay functional, primarily from the United States and other Western countries. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is hoping that the war’s end and ceasefire deal will bring about more funding to increase the military’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were notably present.
Though they were not active combatants, the Lebanese military said that dozens of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on their premises or patrolling convoys in the south. The Israeli army acknowledged some of these attacks.