UN Suspends Aid Movements at Night in Gaza

A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
TT

UN Suspends Aid Movements at Night in Gaza

A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)

The United Nations has suspended movements at night in Gaza for at least 48 hours to evaluate security issues following the killing of staff working for the World Central Kitchen food charity, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.

He said the suspension started on Tuesday. The World Food Program is continuing operations during the day, including daily efforts to send convoys to the north of Gaza "where people are dying," Dujarric said.

"As famine closes in we need humanitarian staff and supplies to be able to move freely and safely across the Gaza Strip," he told reporters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel mistakenly killed seven people working for World Central Kitchen in a Gaza airstrike on Monday, prompting condemnations and calls for explanations from the United States and other allies

The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.

The UN has repeatedly called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the six-month long war between Israel and Hamas. Israel is retaliating against Hamas in Gaza over a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian gunmen.



Syrians Recover Human Remains from Site Used by Hezbollah and Other Assad Allies

An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)
An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)
TT

Syrians Recover Human Remains from Site Used by Hezbollah and Other Assad Allies

An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)
An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)

The Syrian Civil Defense group, known as the White Helmets, uncovered at least 21 corpses as well as incomplete human remains on Wednesday in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb of the capital Damascus.

The discovery was made at a site previously used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran-backed Iraqi militias, both allies of deposed President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war.

The site included a field kitchen, a drugstore and a morgue, according to Ammar al-Salmo, an official with the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operated in areas that were controlled by the opposition.

Rescue teams in white hazmat suits searched the site, located not far from the revered shrine of Sayyida Zeinab. The remains were placed into black bags and loaded onto a truck as bystanders from the neighborhood looked on.

“Some (of the remains) are skeletons, others are incomplete, and there are bags of small bones. We cannot yet determine the number of victims,” al-Salmo said.

“Damascus has become a mass grave,” he said, pointing out the growing reports of war-related graves and burial sites in the capital and other places in Syria.

Iran and Hezbollah provided Assad’s government with military, financial and logistical support during the civil war.