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No Aid Supplies Left and Staff Starving in Gaza, Says Norwegian Refugee Council

People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 22, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 22, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
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No Aid Supplies Left and Staff Starving in Gaza, Says Norwegian Refugee Council

People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 22, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 22, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The Norwegian Refugee Council told Reuters on Tuesday its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza, with some of its staff now starving, and the organization accused Israel of paralyzing its work.

"Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council told Reuters in an interview via video link from Oslo.

The council's comments echo those made earlier on Tuesday by the head of the Palestinian refugee agency, who said UNRWA's staff were fainting on the job from hunger and exhaustion.

The NRC says that for the last 145 days, it has not been able to get hundreds of truckloads of tents, water, sanitation, food and education materials into Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, and Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has denied accusations that it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza, and has accused Palestinian group Hamas of stealing food, which Hamas denies.

"Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting in warehouses or in Egypt or elsewhere, and costing our Western European donors a lot of money, but they are blocked from coming in... That's why we are so angry. Because our job is to help," Egeland said.

"Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyze our work," he added.

The NRC has 64 Palestinian and two international staff on the ground in Gaza. On Sunday the NRC had to move 33 of its staff out of Deir al Balah following Israeli evacuation warnings.

The NRC said its supplies of safe drinking water are also running out, due to dwindling supplies of fuel to run desalination plants. The water has reached 100,000 people in central and northern parts of Gaza in recent weeks

An Israeli official told Reuters there is about a half a million liters of fuel that the UN has been given approval to bring in.

"They're bringing in fuel and collecting, but they can bring in and they can collect more, and we are having discussions with them," the official said.

The official also said that there are about 700 trucks of unpacked aid on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing which have not been distributed.

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Arab World

Israeli Forces Kill Man in West Bank Raid, Palestinians Say

Israeli bulldozers guarded by Israeli soldiers demolish the home belonging to the Palestinian al-Atrash family, citing the lack of a building permit, in the village of Qilqes, a few kilometers from the Israeli settlement of Beit Hagai, just south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron on June 23, 2026. (AFP)
Israeli bulldozers guarded by Israeli soldiers demolish the home belonging to the Palestinian al-Atrash family, citing the lack of a building permit, in the village of Qilqes, a few kilometers from the Israeli settlement of Beit Hagai, just south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron on June 23, 2026. (AFP)
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Israeli Forces Kill Man in West Bank Raid, Palestinians Say

Israeli bulldozers guarded by Israeli soldiers demolish the home belonging to the Palestinian al-Atrash family, citing the lack of a building permit, in the village of Qilqes, a few kilometers from the Israeli settlement of Beit Hagai, just south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron on June 23, 2026. (AFP)
Israeli bulldozers guarded by Israeli soldiers demolish the home belonging to the Palestinian al-Atrash family, citing the lack of a building permit, in the village of Qilqes, a few kilometers from the Israeli settlement of Beit Hagai, just south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron on June 23, 2026. (AFP)

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man during a house raid in a town in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry, a paramedic and a local resident said.

The health ministry said that the Palestinian body in charge of coordinating with Israeli authorities had notified it of the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Zayed, who was "shot dead by the occupation (Israeli) forces in Yamun".

The ministry added that Israeli forces had kept Zayed's body.

The military told AFP it was looking into reports of the man's death.

Sanad Abu Toul, a local resident whose family owns the house raided by Israeli forces, said the raid occurred around 12:30 pm local time (0930 GMT) and Zayed was killed as he tried to escape the premises the army had surrounded.

"Zayed tried to flee the house, but the soldiers shot him at close range in the yard of the house, even though they could have arrested him," Abu Toul told AFP.

Murad Khamayseh, a Palestinian paramedic who was dispatched to the scene, told AFP that the Palestinian Red Crescent received a call about the raid around 1:00 pm local time, and sent teams who were blocked by the army from reaching the besieged house.

"About an hour and a half after we arrived, we heard gunfire, and then local residents found traces of blood on the ground in the yard of the house," said Khamayseh.

Violence has escalated in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,083 Palestinians since then, including both gunmen and civilians, per an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data, according to which 71 people were killed in 2026.

Official Israeli figures show at least 46 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.

Arab World

Israeli Defense Minister Says ‘No US Demand’ to Withdraw from Lebanon

A man walks past the rubble of buildings destroyed in previous Israeli airstrikes in the town of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP)
A man walks past the rubble of buildings destroyed in previous Israeli airstrikes in the town of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP)
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Israeli Defense Minister Says ‘No US Demand’ to Withdraw from Lebanon

A man walks past the rubble of buildings destroyed in previous Israeli airstrikes in the town of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP)
A man walks past the rubble of buildings destroyed in previous Israeli airstrikes in the town of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP)

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the United States has not demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, a condition set by Lebanon in ongoing ceasefire negotiations. 

"We have announced that in any case we are not withdrawing and, as of this moment -- and this is a diplomatic achievement -- there is no American demand for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon," Katz said in an interview at a convention of local leaders in Tel Aviv. 

When asked if the army would adhere to such a US request if it was made, Katz said he told US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Donald Trump that "we are there to protect the residents of the north" of Israel. 

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun rejected Israel's occupation of the south and foreign interference in his country's affairs -- an allusion to Hezbollah's backer Iran -- as a fifth round of Israel-Lebanon talks began in Washington on Tuesday. 

Tehran has also reiterated that peace in Lebanon was a fundamental pillar of reaching a definitive agreement with Washington for an overall end to the Middle East war. 

Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding last week aimed at reaching a permanent settlement between the two countries, following the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran on February 28. 

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. 

Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground offensive that Lebanon says have killed more than 4,100 people, which led to the occupation of a 10-kilometer (six-mile) security zone in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel. 

Israeli officials have insisted that the country will retain control of that zone. 

On Monday, Netanyahu said Israeli forces in Lebanon retained "full freedom of action to thwart any direct or developing threat". 

Israel and Lebanon are currently involved in a US-mediated round of talks in Washington to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict and the disarmament of Hezbollah and the withdrawal of Israeli troops. 

Arab World

Gaza Reconstruction Bodies to Gather in Cyprus

Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Gaza Reconstruction Bodies to Gather in Cyprus

Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Representatives of bodies tasked with Gaza's post-war governance and reconstruction will gather in Cyprus next week, Nicosia and an official with the US-backed Board of Peace said Wednesday, with Israeli media describing the meeting as a chance for a "reset".

The committee of Palestinian technocrats who are meant to assume day-to-day governance of the territory will also attend, a committee member told AFP.

Cypriot government spokesperson Constantinos Letymbiotis said the meeting would take place next Tuesday and Wednesday.

A Board of Peace official told AFP that it "regularly holds internal meetings of its component elements" and the "meeting planned for Cyprus is no different".

The board, he added, "is actively preparing measures to advance reconstruction and governance for the people of Gaza".

The Times of Israel reported that representatives of the various bodies operating under the board's framework would reassess their strategy after a "difficult" first six months that produced few results.

The Israeli news site cited an Arab diplomat and a Palestinian official as describing the gathering as an opportunity to "reset" and "recalibrate".

The Board of Peace was established earlier this year as part of a US-backed ceasefire plan for Gaza endorsed by the UN Security Council.

The initiative aims to facilitate a transition away from Hamas rule while supporting the restoration of civilian administration and basic services.

However progress has been slow, and the Palestinian technocratic committee has yet to even enter Gaza.

The member of the committee said the Cyprus meeting would discuss "the committee's transfer to Gaza and the commencement of its work".

Under the stalled second phase of the US-backed deal, Israel was to gradually pull out of the territory and Hamas was to hand over its weapons, neither of which has happened.