Region

CAIRO — Egypt's president said on Wednesday he would not allow any mass influx of refugees from Gaza, saying it would set a precedent for "the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan".

After talks with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi blamed Israel's air strikes on the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt for the failure to get aid to the territory's 2.4 million people.

"The displacement of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt means the same displacement will take place for Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan," Sisi warned.

"Subsequently, the Palestinian state that we are talking about and that the world is talking about will become impossible to implement, because the land is there, but the people are not. Therefore, I warn of the danger of this matter."

Sisi's meeting with the German chancellor came as Gaza faced a 12th straight day of ferocious Israeli bombardment.

About 3,000 people have been killed in Gaza, which is nearly out of electricity, food, water and fuel.

Pressure has mounted for aid to be allowed in through Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza, the only access to the besieged territory not controlled by Israel.

Sisi said Egypt "did not close" the crossing, but that "developments on the ground and the repeated bombings by Israel of the Palestinian side of the crossing have prevented its operation".

Hundreds of lorries carrying aid have been waiting for six days on the Egyptian side of the crossing, which Israeli aircraft has bombed four times.

Scholz told reporters Berlin and Cairo "are working together to get humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip as quickly as possible".

The two men also warned against the threat of regional spillover, with the Egyptian president calling for "immediate international intervention" to put a stop to "dangerous military escalation that may get out of control".

Scholz reiterated that Germany sought to avoid a "conflagration in the Middle East" and warned Hizbollah and Iran "once again not to intervene in this conflict".

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas too has warned that the displacement of Gazans to Egypt would amount to a “second Nakba” — when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their lands during the war that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.

Most of Gaza’s population are refugees from that exodus.

Egypt has repeatedly refused to accept what it calls the transfer of Israel’s responsibility as an occupying power, including to “provide for the safety of civilians” living under its occupation.

Dismissing comments by pundits about Sinai being a sparsely populated desert area, Sisi suggested Israel’s Negev Desert as an alternative refuge for Gazans.

“Palestinians could be moved there until Israel is finished with what it has declared is an operation to eliminate armed groups” from Gaza, the president said.

“And then it could return them if it wished,” he added.

GENEVA — The number of Sudanese families going hungry has near-doubled after six months of fighting between rival generals, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Thousands have been killed and millions displaced or forced to flee Sudan — while more than half of those remaining need humanitarian aid.

“The number of hungry families has almost doubled,” the UN’s health and children’s agencies said in a joint statement.

“700,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and 100,000 children require life-saving treatment for acute malnutrition with medical complications,” the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF said.

The agencies warned that further health system disruptions caused by the conflict would result in “unacceptably high” numbers of preventable deaths among children and vulnerable populations.

They cited a projection by Johns Hopkins University which indicated that “at least 10,000 children under five years of age may die by the end of 2023 due to the increase in food insecurity, and disruptions to essential services” since the conflict broke out on April 15.

The US university’s Lives Saved Tool modelling is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Sudanese army, led by Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, has been battling the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, after the two fell out in a power struggle.

More than 9,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.

More than a million people have fled Sudan to seek refuge abroad.

A further 4.5 million are considered internally displaced persons, having fled their homes but stayed within the country.

That means there are now 7.1 million IDPs in Sudan — the largest number in the world, the UN agencies said.

“Health facilities are occupied, looted or destroyed. About 70 per cent of hospitals in conflict-affected states are not functional,” it said.

The WHO and UNICEF said they were deeply concerned about cholera, measles, malaria and dengue spreading.

“Health workers have not been paid in months. Supplies are depleted. Critical infrastructure is still under attack. The fighting needs to stop now,” said Mandeep O’Brien, UNICEF’s representative in Sudan.

GAZA STRIP, occupied Palestine — Hundreds of families flocked to Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals on Tuesday seeking refuge from the seemingly endless Israeli army shelling as it builds up for a ground offensive.

Gaza residents, who have been warned to get out of the north of the Palestinian territory, have packed courtyards and corridors in the hospitals that have been relatively unscathed from the Israeli assault that followed the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

Amira, 44, and her children have moved to the courtyard of the Nasser hospital in the southern district of Khan Yunis.

"Our bodies itch all over. It has been a week since we could take a shower," she told AFP as she prepared sandwiches for her children with some loaves she had been given.

"Death might be more merciful," she added.

About one million people from northern Gaza have moved to Khan Yunis and other southern districts to avoid the looming Israeli ground offensive.

More than 2,750 people have died in Israeli bombardments.

About 100,000 people are left in the northern district around Gaza City that Israel says is a Hamas stronghold and has warned will be the target of its assault.

Conditions across the tiny territory are worsening every day for the 2.4 million population, according to aid agencies.

UNICEF, the UN children's agency, has said that unless water and fuel are sent "immediately", Gaza inhabitants are in "imminent danger" of epidemics and death.

The only crossing to the rest of the world at Rafah is closed.

Egypt has refused to open Rafah even though trucks loaded with aid are waiting on the Egyptian side of the border.

Some shells have fallen on the Gaza side and Egypt, Israel and the United States have failed to agree a mechanism to allow the border gates to open to let aid in and some foreign nationals out.

Israel has also cut power and water supplies to Gaza as part of its action.

Israel has partially eased the water ban, but only a tiny fraction of the amount needed for hospitals and shops has passed through.

Gaza’s hospitals say they will struggle to keep operating and the human toll grows every hour.

Hundreds of children are already among the dead and there are 10,000 injured, many packed into the six remaining hospitals.

Shortages of medicines have added to the crisis caused by the lack of water and fuel to keep medical establishments running.

GAZA STRIP, occupied Palestine — Israeli air strikes on a hospital compound in the Gaza Strip killed at least 200 people, officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said on Tuesday, sparking widespread condemnation and fury.

Al Jazeera footage from the scene showed medics and civilians recovering bodies with white bags or blankets. Bloodstains and multiple torched cars were visible in the dark hospital courtyard.

The strike came just hours before US President Joe Biden was due in the Middle East, to balance US backing for Israel with stopping its war against Hamas from spiralling into wider regional conflict.

In an escalation in tensions, the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said between 200 and 300 people displaced by 10 days of heavy bombardment were killed in “occupation [Israeli] strikes” at the Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza.

“Hundreds of victims are still under the rubble,” a statement said, calling it a “war crime”, and prompting condemnation from the World Health Organisation.

Hospitals and their grounds have been seen as safe havens for Gazans made homeless or displaced by the bombing, as they have been relatively spared from strikes.

Separately, the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees said six people were killed when one of its schools sheltering displaced families was hit, during Israeli air strikes.

Israel has also imposed a crippling siege on the impoverished territory and deployed tens of thousands of troops on the border with Gaza in preparation for a full-scale ground offensive.

‘Corpses in the street’ 

Biden will also try to quietly steer Israeli’s military response, as international alarm has grown about the devastating impact of the war on Palestinian civilians.

Entire neighbourhoods have been razed and survivors are left with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel.

The health ministry in Gaza said hospitals were at breaking point, with more than 30,000 people taking shelter at the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City alone.

It said it was “extremely concerned” about disease outbreaks due to poor water supply and sanitation.

“There are corpses in the streets. Buildings are crashing down on their inhabitants,” said Jamil Abdullah, a Palestinian-Swede, hoping to flee the blockaded enclave.

“The smell of the dead is everywhere.”

UNRWA says more than one million Palestinians — almost half of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million — have fled their homes.

An UNRWA flour storage near Gaza City was hit by an Israeli strike, an AFP photographer said. Even as the smoke was still rising from the rubble, desperate residents collected flour from the ground.

“We are dying of hunger,” said Abu Hussni Al Hujein, 60.

Israel has ordered residents of north Gaza to leave for the south, hoping to clear the area of civilians in preparation for a ground assault that would involve gruelling urban combat.

RAFAH, Egypt — Relief convoys which have been waiting for days in Egypt were on Tuesday headed towards the Rafah border crossing with the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza, aid officials said.

The blockaded territory has been under sustained Israeli bombardment since Gaza's ruling militant group Hamas launched its bloody onslaught against Israel on October 7.

So far Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing closed, to aid going in or foreign nationals trying to flee, as Israel has repeatedly struck the Palestinian side of the crossing.

"We have arrived at the terminal and are now waiting for the next step," said Heba Rashed, who runs the aid group Mersal.

Hundreds more lorries were headed along the coast road for the 40 kilometre journey from the Egyptian city of Al Arish to Rafah, other aid officials said.

A Red Crescent official confirmed that aid convoys were being assembled on the Egyptian side of the divided border city of Rafah.

"We've not been told what time we're going to cross but we were asked to head for Rafah," the Egyptian Red Crescent official said, asking not to be identified.

“You could say we’re nearing a deal on the entry of aid and the exit of foreigners,” said the official, who was himself headed to Rafah.

The Israeli military launched its devastating bombardment after Hamas militants broke through the heavily fortified border.

The reprisals have killed at least 2,750 people in Gaza, according to health officials in the territory. The casualties on both sides have mostly been civilians.

Aid deliveries from multiple agencies and donor governments have been piling up in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula for the past few days amid mounting appeals to Israel to establish a safe corridor into the Gaza Strip.

The European Union has called for an aid bridge to be established for the 2.4 million people in Gaza, many of whom have been driven from their homes.

During 10 days of artillery bombardments and air strikes, the Israeli military has hit the Rafah crossing four times, prompting authorities to keep it largely closed.

Israel’s top ally the United States has been pressing Egypt to reopen the border to allow Palestinian Americans in Gaza to leave.

UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths was due in Cairo on Tuesday to help the efforts for an agreement.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said the food situation in the besieged and blockaded Gaza Strip was worsening, with only four or five days of stocks left in the shops.

WFP said stocks were getting low in warehouses inside the Palestinian enclave, but at the shop level, the situation was even more acute.

“The situation in Gaza is getting worse by the minute: The humanitarian situation but also of course the food security situation,” WFP’s Middle East spokeswoman Abeer Etefa, told reporters at the UN in Geneva via video-link from Cairo.

“The current stocks of essential food commodities are sufficient for only two weeks, and that’s at the wholesalers’ level,” she said, with the warehouses located in Gaza City in the north of the territory and shops having difficulties replenishing supplies.

“Inside the shops, the stocks are getting close to less than a few days, maybe four or five days of food stocks left.”

Etefa said that out of five flour mills in the Gaza Strip, only one was operating due to security concerns and the unavailability of fuel.

“So the bread supply is running low and people are lining up for hours to get bread,” she said.

Only five bakeries out of 23 in Gaza contracted by WFP were still in operation, she added.

“Our food supplies within Gaza are running really short,” said Etefa.

The spokeswoman said there has been no looting of WFP warehouses, and “anyway, whatever we have left in the warehouses is so little”.

CAIRO — Egypt and France's foreign ministers urged on Monday the delivery of humanitarian aid and the exit of foreign nationals from the bombarded Gaza Strip, on the tenth day of war between Israel and Hamas.

"Those who want to leave Gaza must be able to do so," France's Catherine Colonna said, urging the opening of crossing points.

Egypt controls the Rafah border crossing, the only passage in and out of the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel.

A US official had told AFP on Saturday that Egypt and Israel had reached an agreement for American citizens to leave through Rafah.

But Cairo's top diplomat Sameh Shoukry told reporters on Monday that Egypt had "repeated its request to Israeli authorities for humanitarian aid to pass through".

Shoukry said there was "nothing new, which is a dangerous matter considering the new needs that the Palestinian people in Gaza are being exposed to".

By Monday afternoon, the crossing remained closed, locking convoys of aid on one side of the border, and fleeing Palestinians and foreigners on the other, according to AFP correspondents and witnesses.

AFP correspondents also reported that the area of the crossing was hit by another military strike on Monday.

The UN has repeatedly warned of the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel has declared a "complete siege", cutting off basic supplies to the territory's 2.4 million people.

Collona announced that France "is going to mobilise 10 million euros [$10.5 million] for the people of Gaza".

As diplomatic overtures yield little success, she said Paris "welcomes Egypt's initiative" for an international summit on the conflict.

She said it would “show that there is a political horizon that can take into account Israel’s right to security and the Palestinians’ right to a state”.

Colonna said the “weight of the conflict must not fall on Egypt”, which has faced calls to accept refugees from Gaza.

Cairo has rejected such calls, warning of a fresh forced displacement of Palestinians and instead urging restraint and diplomatic efforts for de-escalation.

BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities should take all necessary measures to avert a war with Israel, France’s foreign minister said in Beirut on Monday, following repeated exchanges of fire along the shared frontier.

Catherine Colonna spoke hours after Israel and Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement again traded cross-border fire, adding to tensions and fears of a wider war, 10 days into fighting between Gaza-based Hamas and Israel.

Tit-for-tat fire in recent days between Hizbollah and its allied Palestinian factions on the one side and Israel on the other have killed at least 11 people in southern Lebanon and two in Israel.

“Lebanese officials have a responsibility... to do everything possible to prevent Lebanon from being dragged into a spiral,” Catherine Colonna told a press conference, adding that, no group “should take advantage” of the situation.

The United Nations patrols the border between Lebanon and Israel, which remain technically at war.

We must “continue to avoid a conflagration which could threaten the entire region”, Colonna said following stops in Israel and Cairo.

Earlier on Monday, she met with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati who said: “We are working for peace, but the decision to go to war is in Israel’s hands.”

Mikati leads a caretaker government in a country whose political paralysis has left it without a president for almost a year, during a four-year economic meltdown.

“There is no benefit to anyone... in opening a front with south Lebanon, because the Lebanese cannot cope with this,” Mikati said in a statement.

Lebanon’s army said Monday it found and dismantled “20 rocket launchers”, four of which were loaded, near the towns of Qlaileh and Shaaytiyeh, south of the coastal city of Tyre.

It provided no information on the origin of the launchers.