Israel-Hamas war: UN relief chief calls Gaza 'uninhabitable'

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that "three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair." 

Hamas carried out terror attacks on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and taking some 240 people hostage. In response, Israel launched a military operation against Hamas in Gaza, with limited humanitarian supplies allowed into the Gaza Strip.

Griffiths decried the deaths of "tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children" and said "medical facilities are under relentless attack."

He said a "public health disaster is unfolding," while noting that "famine is around the corner."

"Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on," Griffiths said.

"We continue to demand an immediate end to the war," Griffiths said, adding that "it is time for the parties to meet all their obligations under international law, including to protect civilians and meet their essential needs, and to release all hostages immediately."  

France and Jordan have airdropped aid to help civilians in Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday. 

"The humanitarian situation remains critical in Gaza," Macron wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "In a difficult context, France and Jordan delivered aid by air to the population and those who help them."

A French presidency official told Reuters news agency that the seven metric tons of urgent humanitarian assistance would go to a southern Gaza field hospital in Khan Younis. The official said French and Jordanian aircraft took part in the humanitarian operation.   

Reuters reported that the French official did not comment on whether Israel gave its support for the aid operation.

Gaza faces a massive humanitarian crisis. With the exception of a brief pause in fighting that saw relatively more aid reaching Gaza, Israel has blocked the delivery of most food, water, fuel and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip. Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid meant for civilians in Gaza. The group denies the allegation.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday vowed that there would be "inevitable" retaliation after the killing of senior Hamas figure Saleh Arouri in Beirut earlier this week.

"The response is inevitably coming," Nasrallah said in a televised address. "We cannot remain silent on a violation of this magnitude because it means the whole of Lebanon will be exposed.

"The decision is now in the hands of the battlefield," he continued. "Fighters from all areas of the border...will be the ones responding to the dangerous violation in the suburbs."    

Arouri was killed Tuesday in an apparent drone attack in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital. Hamas has alleged that Israel was behind the killing. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied having a role in Arouri's killing, though Israeli officials have pledged to hunt down Hamas leaders around the world. 

Nasrallah gave an earlier speech on Wednesday after the killing, in which he warned Israel against going to war against Lebanon. 

Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group in Lebanon that formed after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. Hezbollah has both political and military factions.

The US, UK, Germany, the Arab League and Israel all view the entire Hezbollah organization as a terror group. The EU designates Hezbollah's military faction as a terror group.   

Hamas, meanwhile, controls the Gaza Strip in the Palestinian territories. Affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas was founded by Palestinian Imam Ahmed Yassin in 1987.

Hamas carried out terror attacks on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 people hostage. The attacks led to the current Israeli military operation against Hamas in Gaza, which has led to the deaths of more than 22,000 people and displaced almost 2 million more, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry. 

Hamas is not only designated a terror organization by Israel but also by the United States, Germany and the EU, among others.   

Danish shipping giant Maersk said it would divert all vessels to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal for the "forseeable future" due to a spate of attacks by Yemen-based Houthi militants.

"The situation is constantly evolving and remains highly volatile, and all available intelligence at hand confirms that the security risk continues to be at a significantly elevated level," Maersk said in a statement.

Maersk said earlier this week it would pause all vessels bound for the Red Sea following an attack on one of its ships by Houthi militants. The company said it has begun redirecting ships around Africa.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have stepped up attacks on ships in the Gulf region to show their support for Palestinian Islamist group Hamas fighting Israel in Gaza.

Rerouting ships around the Cape of Good Hope instead of taking the quickest path between Europe and Asia through Egypt's Suez Canal represents an additional 10-day journey and negatively impacts global trade, International Maritime Organization Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez has said. 

At least 22,600 people have been killed and another 57,910 injured in Gaza since the start of the war, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory has said.

Some 162 Palestinians were killed and 296 wounded in the last 24 hours, the ministry added in a statement.

While the Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, international humanitarian agencies consider the numbers provided by the body to be broadly reliable.

The ministry has said the majority of people killed in Gaza have been women and children.

The German government is monitoring the situation on the border between Israel and Lebanon, a German Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

"The risk of escalation is unfortunately very real," spokesperson Sebastian Fischer told reporters at a press briefing in Berlin.

He also announced that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is scheduled to depart for Israel on Sunday.

During the trip, Baerbock is expected to meet her new counterpart, Israel Katz, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Fischer said.

Baerbock is then scheduled to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. She is also expected to travel to Egypt and Lebanon.

The focus of the talks in the region would be the "extremely volatile situation" between Israeli forces and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and efforts to secure the release of more hostages held in Gaza, Fischer said.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and top US diplomat Antony Blinken are also visiting Israel over the weekend.

The killing of a senior Hamas leader in southern Lebanon has sparked concerns about the Israel-Hamas war spilling over into the wider region, with the Iran-backed Hezbollah vowing retaliation for the assassination. 

Tamir Adar, an Israeli man who was abducted from the Nir Oz kibbutz community during the terror attacks by Hamas militants three months ago, died in captivity, the kibbutz said in a statement.

"The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] informed the family that he was murdered on October 7, and since then his body has been kept in Gaza," the statement said.

Adar, who was 38 years old, was among some 250 people taken hostage from Israeli border communities and military posts on October 7.

Adar's grandmother was also among those abducted, but she has since been released.

The Nir Oz kibbutz was one of the communities hardest hit by the attacks, during which Hamas militants stormed across the border and killed some 1,200 people.

Around 70 people from the small community of 400 residents were abducted. 

Israel has said 132 captives are still being held by the militants in Gaza. Of those, at least 24 are known to have died so far, including three who were mistakenly killed by Israeli soldiers.

Retired US army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus told DW it was "possible to destroy Hamas" but the "question is whether it is likely at this point."

"To destroy an enemy you have to render it incapable of accomplishing its mission without reconstitution," Petraeus said in an interview with DW Washington Bureau Chief Ines Pohl.

Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the militant group's terror attacks on October 7.

Petraeus said it was important not to "foster a new generation that might be attracted by the Hamas ideology by the way you go about destroying Hamas," and in light of the high civilian death toll in Gaza.

He added that there was a need for "big ideas" about who is going to administer Gaza after the war, a task Patraeus said will most likely fall to Israel.

On the potential of the conflict spilling over into the region, especially given the tense situation at the Israeli border with Lebanon, Patraeus said he thinks it's unlikely Lebanon's Hezbollah wants to be dragged into a bigger war with Israel.

The Iran-backed group has traded tit-for-tat fire across the border with Israel for months. 

On Tuesday, Hamas deputy leader Saleh Arouri was killed in a strike in southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, is set to travel to Lebanon from January 5 to 7, the European Commission has said.

In a statement, the commission said Borrell would meet with the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib and Lebanese Armed Forces Commander General Joseph Aoun for talks.

The officials are expected to discuss "all aspect of the situation in and around Gaza," including the impact of the war on the broader region.

They will also discuss the situation at the Israeli-Lebanese border to avoid any "regional escalation," the statement said.

The EU has pledged humanitarian assistance to the tune of over €100 million ($109 million) for Gaza, and Borrell will discuss efforts to sustain the flow of aid, the commission said.

Borrell's visit comes after the killing of a senior Hamas leader in a strike in the Lebanese capital earlier this week, which has raised fears of an escalation between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

Hezbollah has warned of retaliation for the death of its leader. The militant group been trading fire in a limited way with Israel since the start of the war. 

Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has issued a document to outline the next phase of the war in Gaza.

The document, unveiled Thursday and titled a "vision for Phase 3," describes how Israeli forces would shift to an apparently scaled-down "new combat approach" in northern Gaza and continue fighting Hamas in the south "for as long as necessary."

Gallant's office said the phase has not yet begun, adding that the ideas in the document were his and not official Israeli policy, which have to be set by Israel's war and security cabinets. Gallant is a member of both cabinets.

The proposal described how Israeli forces would maintain tight security control in Gaza after a Hamas defeat, while an undefined Palestinian body would run the day-to-day adminstration.

"Gaza residents are Palestinian, therefore, Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel," the document read.

The US and other countries would oversee the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli campaign to crush Hamas militants has left more than 22,400 people dead, according to figures from health authorities in the Hamas-run territory.

The issue of reconstruction and a postwar vision for Gaza is likely to be on the agenda during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's planned talks as he visits Israel and other countries in the region.

Israel launched a campaign to root out Hamas militants in Gaza after gunmen breached border defenses and killed some 1,200 people in Israel on October 7. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and other governments.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in the Middle East on Friday, with his trip to include stops in Israel and the occupied West Bank, Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

It is Blinken's fourth trip to the region since the war in Gaza began following Hamas' attacks in Israel on October 7.

His diplomatic efforts are largely expected to address heightened concerns that the Israel-Hamas war could become a broader regional conflict.

rm/nm (AP, Reuters, AFP, DPA)