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UN: Over 30,000 Crossed into Syria from Lebanon in Past Days

People fleeing from Lebanon arrive on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon in Jdeidat Yabus in southwestern Syria on September 25, 2024. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
People fleeing from Lebanon arrive on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon in Jdeidat Yabus in southwestern Syria on September 25, 2024. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
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UN: Over 30,000 Crossed into Syria from Lebanon in Past Days

People fleeing from Lebanon arrive on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon in Jdeidat Yabus in southwestern Syria on September 25, 2024. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
People fleeing from Lebanon arrive on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon in Jdeidat Yabus in southwestern Syria on September 25, 2024. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)

Well over 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, amid an escalating conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah that has killed hundreds of people in Lebanon.
About 80% of those crossings are Syrians and about 20% are Lebanese, said the UNHCR representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, adding that about half are children and adolescents, and that men are making the crossing in smaller numbers than women.
"They are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced a crisis conflict for 13 years," an extremely difficult choice, he told a news conference.
"We will have to see over the next few days how many more do so," added the representative. 

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Oxfam: Only 12 Trucks Delivered Food, Water in North Gaza Governorate since October

Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File
Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File
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Oxfam: Only 12 Trucks Delivered Food, Water in North Gaza Governorate since October

Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File
Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File

Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday, raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.
"Of the meager 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians," Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday.
"For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours," Oxfam added.
Israel, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid, AFP said.
In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Israeli authorities "of a systematic nature" to deprive Gazans of water, which had "likely caused thousands of deaths... and will likely continue to cause deaths."
They were the latest in a series of accusations leveled against Israel -- and denied by the country -- during its 14-month war against Palestinian Hamas group.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
'Access blocked'
Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Oxfam said that it and other international aid groups have been "continually prevented from delivering life-saving aid" in northern Gaza since October 6 this year, when Israel intensified its bombardment of the territory.
"Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it's impossible to know exact numbers," Oxfam said.
"At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water."
Oxfam highlighted one instance of an aid delivery in November being disrupted by Israeli authorities.
"A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Israeli military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians," it said.
"After the green light to proceed to the destination was received, the trucks were then stopped further on at a military checkpoint. Soldiers forced the drivers to offload the aid in a militarized zone, which desperate civilians had no access to."
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assess Israel's obligations to assist Palestinians.