GENEVA: A World Health Organization official said Monday a humanitarian team finally reached one of northern Gaza’s only functioning hospitals at the weekend to deliver fuel, food and medicines, and found “appalling” conditions.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is located in Beit Lahia, a city at the center of an intense Israeli military operation aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that after multiple attempts, the United Nations health agency and partners reached the facility “two days ago, amid hostilities and explosions in the vicinity of the hospital during the mission.”
The team, he said, had “delivered 5,000 liters of fuel, food and medicines, and transferred three patients and six companions to Al-Shifa,” the Palestinian territory’s main hospital.
Kamal Adwan is one of the last operational medical facilities in the north of the war-ravaged territory, with the WHO warning earlier this month that it was operating at a “minimum” level.
The agency said efforts to deliver desperately needed supplies have been repeatedly hampered.
Earlier this month, it said a mission reached the hospital on November 30 after weeks of unsuccessful attempts, bringing aid and an international emergency team, including surgeons and other specialists.
But days later, that team was among large numbers who fled the hospital amid heavy hostilities around the facility.
“This has left the hospital without specialized personnel for surgical and maternal care,” Tedros warned, adding that the attacks have resulted in further damage to the facility and its oxygen and electricity supplies.
“The conditions in the hospital are simply appalling,” he said.
“We urge for the protection of health care and for this hell to stop! Ceasefire!“
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
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 UN considers reliable.
Conditions in north Gaza hospital ‘appalling’: WHO chief
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Conditions in north Gaza hospital ‘appalling’: WHO chief

- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: UN health agency and partners reached the facility ‘two days ago, amid hostilities and explosions in the vicinity of the hospital during the mission’
- Ghebreyesus: Team ‘delivered 5,000 liters of fuel, food and medicines, and transferred three patients and six companions to Al-Shifa,’ the Palestinian territory’s main hospital
AU urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes

- Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
South Lebanon votes in municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah

- Municipal elections are taking place in Lebanon as residents in the south cast their votes over the weekend.
- Hezbollah and Amal representatives are among those running for elections.
BEIRUT: Residents of southern Lebanon voted Saturday in the country’s municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah in the predominantly Shiite areas, months after the end of the destructive Israel-Hezbollah war.
Hezbollah is running in an alliance with the Amal group of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and both are expected to win mayoral races and the majority of seats in municipal councils. Both groups already won many municipalities uncontested.
South Lebanon is the fourth and last district to vote in the elections since May 4. Among those who voted Saturday were Hezbollah members wounded in the Sept. 17, 2024, explosions of thousands of pagers that blew up near-simultaneously in an operation carried out by Israel. More than a dozen were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded.
“The will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” President Joseph Aoun said during a tour of south Lebanon Saturday. He told reporters in his hometown of Aaichiyeh that he voted for the first time in 40 years.
Saturday’s vote came two days after Israel’s air force carried out intense airstrikes in different parts of south Lebanon.
Residents of villages and towns on the border with Israel, including the village of Kfar Kila that was almost completely destroyed during the war, cast their ballots at polling stations set up in the nearby city of Nabatiyeh. Residents of other border villages cast their ballots in the port city of Tyre.
“Southerners are proving again that they are with the choice of resistance,” Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayad, who represents border villages, said in Nabatiyeh.
Lebanon’s cash-strapped government has been scrambling to secure international funds for the war reconstruction, which the World Bank estimates at over $11 billion.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon that escalated into a full-blown war that left more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon and more than 80 soldiers and 47 civilians in Israel. A US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in late November.
Israeli settlers force Palestinian families to leave village

- Mughayyir Al-Deir in occupied West Bank was home to shepherds, farming families
- Settlers built illegal outpost under protection of Israeli police, military
LONDON: Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have forced about 150 Palestinians from their village through a violent five-day campaign carried out under the protection of Israeli authorities.
Last weekend, the settler group had constructed an illegal outpost close to a Palestinian home in Mughayyir Al-Deir, east of Ramallah, The Guardian reported.
The village is home to shepherds and farmers, and by Friday this week dozens of villagers had moved their flocks away and had gathered their belongings to leave the area.
“Settlers stalked between Palestinian men who worked fast and largely in silence, grappling with the grim reality of leaving the place where most were born and grew up,” The Guardian reported. “A child cried as he was driven away on a truck loaded with the family’s red sofas.”
Israeli settlers belonging to the extremist group Hilltop Youth celebrated as Palestinian families left the village.
The group’s unofficial spokesperson, Elisha Yered, said: “This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken.”
Several of the settlers involved in the illegal campaign, including Yered, are subject to UK and EU sanctions.
Yered was “part of a group of armed settlers” that carried out an attack in 2023 that killed Qusai Jammal Mi’tan, a 19-year-old Palestinian, sanctions files show.
Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, two Israeli settlers under British sanctions, visited the illegal outpost at Mughayyir Al-Deir this week.
The hills surrounding the village are dotted with the ruins of other abandoned Palestinian homes, as settlers have waged a campaign to clear the area of locals.
In Mughayyir Al-Deir, Israeli police and military personnel stood guard and patrolled as the settlers began to build the outpost.
Zvi Sukkot, a far-right MP who said on TV last week that Israel “can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares,” visited the village to support the settlers.
A Palestinian family from Mughayyir Al-Deir filed a petition in Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday.
They demanded an injunction and urgent hearing on the settler campaign, and asked why Israeli authorities had failed to intervene over the illegal outpost and evictions.
Many of the Palestinian families forced to leave the village had relatives who were forced to leave Beersheba during the Nakba in 1948, when some 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland.
An Israeli military spokesperson said troops worked “to ensure the security of the state of Israel and Judea and Samaria (Israel’s name for the occupied West Bank).” The military will respond to the Palestinian family’s petition in court, the spokesperson said.
A hearing is scheduled for next week, but all Palestinian families will have left Mughayyir Al-Deir by then.
Egypt flies home 71 nationals from Libya after unrest

- 71 Egyptians were flown back to Egypt following a rise in violence in Libya as a result of anti government protests.
- Protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah continue to grow amid deadly clashes with security forces.
CAIRO: Egypt has flown 71 nationals home from the Libyan capital Tripoli after deadly clashes between rival militias rocked the city earlier this month, the foreign ministry said.
Friday’s special flight by flag carrier EgyptAir “enabled the repatriation of 71 Egyptian citizens who had expressed a desire to come home,” the ministry said.
From May 12 to 15, the Libyan capital was rocked by fighting between an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government and factions it has sought to dismantle.
The clashes, which saw artillery exchanges in the city center, killed at least eight people, according to the United Nations.
Although relative calm has since returned to the city, the situation remains highly volatile as calls grow for the resignation of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.
Turkiye evacuated 82 of its nationals from Tripoli on a similar repatriation flight last week.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli led by Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
UK’s ruling Labour under internal pressure to recognize Palestine

- Holocaust survivor Lord Dubs among party grandees saying govt must take step ahead of any peace deal
- Saudi Arabia, France co-chairing conference on two-state solution next month
LONDON: The UK government is under pressure from senior Labour figures to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Ahead of a UN conference on a two-state solution in New York next month, Labour peer and Holocaust survivor Lord Dubs said such a move would strengthen the Palestinians’ hand in future peace talks with Israel, and would give them “self-respect.”
He told The Guardian: “Even if it doesn’t lead to anything immediately, it would still give Palestinians a better standing.”
Lord Hain, a former government minister, said “delaying recognition until negotiations are concluded simply allows Israel’s illegal occupation to become permanent,” and recognition should be “a catalyst, not a consequence” of peace negotiations.
The UN conference could see both the UK and France formally recognize a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia, which is co-chairing the conference with France, urged countries to view Palestinian statehood as “a precondition for peace, and not its product.”
France and Saudi Arabia say the aim of the conference is not “to ‘revive’ or to ‘relaunch’ another endless process, but to implement, once and for all, the two-state solution.”
They have asked participants “to highlight the actions they are willing to undertake, individually or collectively, in fulfilment of their obligations and in support of the international consensus on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the two-state solution.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has previously hinted that his government would join the 147 states that already recognize Palestine.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament that discussions are underway with French counterparts over recognition, but that Britain is angling for more than just a symbolic gesture at the conference.
Earlier in May, 69 Labour politicians — including a number of government ministers — signed a letter drafted by Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recognize Palestine, in what they called a “unique window of opportunity.”
Labour MP Alex Ballinger, a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: “We can no longer speak in platitudes about two states while blocking the very steps that could help make one of them real.”
Afzal Khan, a former Labour shadow minister, said: “Recognition would now be a positive first step towards securing a peaceful two-state solution, end unlawful settlement expansions and blockades, and unlock the diplomatic and humanitarian pathways to lasting justice.”