Martin Griffiths

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said on Sunday that Israel had definitively barred it from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest.

Negotiations to pause the Israel-Hamas war and free the remaining hostages headed into a second day in Cairo yesterday, as displaced Gazans braced for an expected Israeli assault on their last refuge of Rafah.

The United Nations said yesterday it will need $4.2 billion to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine in 2024, and to help millions of refugees who have fled the war-torn country.

While the Gaza war has dominated headlines in recent months, Russia's war in Ukraine is set to enter its third year in February.

Israel bombed Gaza on Saturday as the United Nations warned the Palestinian territory has become "uninhabitable" after three months of fighting that threatens to engulf the wider region.

AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes early Saturday on Gaza's southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

Israel has ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza's main city as diplomats pressed on with efforts to secure a pause in the war that Hamas says has claimed 20,000 lives.

The United Nations said Israel had issued evacuation orders on Wednesday for large areas of Khan Yunis, where more than 140,000 displaced people were sheltering.

The United Nations said yesterday that it needed $46.4 billion next year to bring life-saving help to around 180 million people in desperate circumstances around the world.

The U.N. said the global humanitarian outlook for 2024 was "bleak," with conflicts, climate emergencies and collapsing economies "wreaking havoc" on the most vulnerable.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid announced today that due to fuel shortages, aid packages stored in warehouses in the southern part of the Strip cannot be transported and reach the Palestinian population, DPA reported.

The leaders of six Western countries reaffirmed their support for Israel's "right to defend itself against terrorism" but also urged it to adhere to international humanitarian law. At the same time, a second humanitarian aid convoy was allowed to enter the Gaza Strip.

The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is "hugely worse" than before the Kakhovka dam collapsed, the U.N.'s top aid official warned Friday.

Ukraine was evacuating thousands of people Wednesday after an attack on a major Russian-held dam unleashed a torrent of water, inundating two dozen villages and sparking fears of a humanitarian disaster.