UNRWA Says Food Distribution in Rafah Suspended Due to Insecurity

Displaced Palestinian children carry containers with food in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on May 19, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinian children carry containers with food in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on May 19, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
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UNRWA Says Food Distribution in Rafah Suspended Due to Insecurity

Displaced Palestinian children carry containers with food in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on May 19, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinian children carry containers with food in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on May 19, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that food distribution in Gaza's southern city of Rafah were currently suspended due to lack of supplies and insecurity.

UNRWA said in a statement on X that only seven out of its 24 health centers were operational and that it had not received any medical supplies in the past 10 days due to "closures/disruptions" at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza.

Israel mounted a new push in central Gaza on Monday, bombarding towns in the north of the Palestinian enclave and saying it intended to broaden operations in Rafah despite US warnings of the risk of mass casualties in the southern city.

Simultaneous Israeli assaults on the southern and northern edges of Hamas-ruled Gaza this month have caused a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, and sharply restricted the flow of aid, raising the risk of famine.



Toll in Syria Opposition-army Fighting Rises to 242

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
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Toll in Syria Opposition-army Fighting Rises to 242

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)

More than 240 people, mostly combatants, were killed as intense fighting approached Syria's northern Aleppo city after the opposition launched a major offensive on government-held areas this week, a monitor said Friday.
On Wednesday, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied Turkish-backed factions launched an attack on government-held areas in the northwest, triggering the fiercest fighting since 2020, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said fighting reached two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the main northern city of Aleppo, where the group’s artillery shelling on student housing killed four civilians, according to state media.
"The combatants' death toll in the ongoing... operation in the Idlib and Aleppo countrysides has risen to 218," since Wednesday, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
In addition to the fighters, it said 24 civilians were killed.
Syrian ally Russia launched air strikes that killed 19 civilians on Thursday, while another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier, said the Observatory which on Thursday had reported an overall toll of about 200 dead, including the civilians.