SVE NEWS & FRANCE24.COM Sharing Series — UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backs Palestinian bid for membership

Israel said Friday it had delivered 200,000 litres of fuel into the besieged Gaza Strip, after the United Nations said a lack of stocks was crippling aid operations.

The Israeli defence ministry body that oversees Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, announced “the transfer of 200,000 litres (52,834 gallons) of fuel to international organisations in the Gaza Strip”.

It said the fuel had been delivered through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into southern Gaza, through which most humanitarian aid, although usually not fuel, enters the Palestinian territory.

“All of the trucks carrying the fuel were inspected” by defence ministry staff, it said, adding that the fuel would go towards “essential requirements of the international community, including hospitals, humanitarian areas, logistical centres and the distribution of humanitarian aid”.

The United States renewed concern Friday about an Israeli assault on Rafah but said it saw no major operation yet against the packed Gaza city and still held out the possibility of a ceasefire deal.

“We’re obviously watching it with concern, of course, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say what we’ve seen here in the last 24 hours connotes or indicates a broad, large (or) major ground operation,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Palestinian militant group Hamas wants calmness and a real hostages for prisoners swap deal, but Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants the war to continue, Hamas senior official Khalil Al-Hayya said on Friday, adding Hamas did not suspend nor withdraw from the ceasefire negotiations.

South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order additional emergency measures against Israel over its attacks on Rafah in the Gaza Strip, the UN’s top court said on Friday.

In the ongoing case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians, the World Court in January ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians.

The Palestinian foreign ministry said Friday that a vote at the UN General Assembly to grant Palestinians additional rights in the world body showed that they deserve “full membership”.

The vote “affirms that Palestine meets all the requirements stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations… Thus it deserves, and is qualified to obtain, full membership in the United Nations”, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Israel’s foreign minister said Friday that a symbolic UN General Assembly vote in support of full UN membership for Palestine sent the message to Hamas that “violence pays off”.

Slamming the vote as “political theatre”, Israel Katz said on X that all it achieved was “rewarding the murderers and rapists of Hamas, and undermining efforts to release hostages”, sending the message that “violence pays off”.

Hamas said Friday that Israel’s rejection of a truce plan submitted by mediators at talks in Cairo had sent talks on a ceasefire and hostage release back to “square one”.

“The rejection of the mediators’ proposal by Israel… has returned matters to square one,” the militant group said in an English-language statement, a day after Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams left Cairo talks on the terms of a truce without a deal.

Hamas said it had agreed to the plan which involved the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the return of displaced civilians and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, with the aim of a “permanent ceasefire” – something Israel has long resisted insisting it must first finish dismantling Hamas.

At least 34,943 Palestinians have been killed and 78,572 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since October 7, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

A soon-to-be released Biden administration report does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for its use of US weapons, according three people who have been briefed on the matter.

The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel even though it didn’t conclude that Israel violated terms of US-Israel weapons agreements, according to one US official.

Two US officials and a third person briefed on the findings of the national security memorandum to be submitted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Congress discussed the matter before the report’s release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public.

A senior Biden administration official said the memorandum is expected to be released later Friday, but declined to comment on the findings.

Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and driven more than 110,000 people to flee north, UN officials said Friday.

With nothing entering through the crossings, food and other supplies were running critically low, aid agencies said.

The World Food Program will run out of food for distribution in southern Gaza by Saturday, said Georgios Petropoulos, an official with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Rafah. Aid groups have said fuel will also be depleted soon, forcing hospitals to shut down critical operations and bringing to a halt trucks delivering aid across south and central Gaza.

Eden Golan is in Sweden for the Eurovision Song Contest, but she isn’t seeing much of the country.

The 20-year-old Israeli singer is surrounded by security as she travels between hotel and the contest venue in the city of Malmo. According to Israel’s public broadcaster, she practiced singing while being booed to prepare for her performance in the pan-continental song competition.

Golan has become a focus for protests by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who want Israel kicked out of Eurovision over the war with Hamas, which has killed almost 35,000 people in Gaza. The war began with Hamas’ surprise attack into southern Israel in October, in which the militant group killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage.

A crowd estimated by police at more than 10,000 marched through the southern Swedish city on Thursday to chants of “Free Palestine” and “Israel is a terror state”. Banners accused Eurovision of being complicit in genocide and called for a boycott of the competition.

Another protest march is planned for Saturday, hours before Golan competes in the live Eurovision final against acts from 25 other countries.

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably”.

The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member – a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state – after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.

The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favor and nine against – including the US and Israel – while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

The General Assembly resolution “determines that the State of Palestine … should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably”.

An Israeli ground attack in Gaza’s Rafah would lead to an “epic humanitarian disaster”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday after negotiators left truce talks in Cairo without a deal.

“A massive ground attack in Rafah would lead to (an) epic humanitarian disaster and pull the plug on our efforts to support people as famine looms,” Guterres said during a visit to Nairobi, adding that the situation in the southern Gaza city was “on a knife’s edge”.

“We are actively engaged with all involved for the resumption of the entry of life-saving supplies–including desperately needed fuel – through Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings,” he said, reiterating his calls for a ceasefire.

United Nations and European officials Friday condemned attacks against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in east Jerusalem, which have forced it to temporarily close its headquarters.

“I condemn the recent attack on UNRWA Headquarters in East Jerusalem. Targeting aid workers and humanitarian assets is unacceptable, and must stop,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter, referring to Thursday’s attack.

Earlier Germany’s foreign ministry called out the “escalation of violent protest” and said on X that “Israel must ensure the protection of UN facilities and personnel in the occupied Palestinian territories”.

“The UN need to be able to serve their important mandate in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem,” the ministry added.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc also “strongly condemns the attack”.

“It is Israel’s responsibility to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers. UNRWA is an irreplaceable lifeline to millions in Gaza and the region,” he said in a post on X.

The Israeli army said four soldiers were killed on Friday when an “explosive device” went off near a school in Gaza City.

“The four soldiers were killed in the same incident, from an explosive device near a school in the area of Zeitoun”, a southern neighbourhood of Gaza City, the military said.

In a statement, the military said that two other soldiers were “seriously injured” in the blast, including an officer.

Separately, the Israeli military said that two soldiers were seriously wounded in fighting in southern Gaza, adding that they had been evacuated to hospital for treatment.

Several armed groups issued statements Friday claiming a range of attacks in Gaza.

Police made more than 40 arrests as pro-Palestinian protest encampments were dismantled Friday at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hours after police tear-gassed demonstrators and took down a similar camp at the University of Arizona.

Tensions have ratcheted up in standoffs with protesters on campuses across the United States and in Europe. Some colleges cracked down immediately, while others have tolerated the demonstrations. Some have begun to lose patience and call in the police over concerns about disruptions to campus life and safety.

Israel’s security cabinet approved a “measured expansion” of ​​Israeli forces’ operation in Rafah in a Thursday night vote even as it instructed its negotiators to continue efforts to reach a hostage deal, Axios reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

Axios said two of its sources said the expansion did not cross Joe Biden’s red line while the third said it could be seen as crossing the line set by the US president as he pauses some US military aid.

Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike in south Lebanon on Friday killed a first responder from a rescue group affiliated with a Hezbollah-allied movement and a telecoms technician doing maintenance work.

A Risala Scout association rescuer and a technician from Power Tec, which undertakes maintenance work for private mobile service provider MTC Touch, were killed “as a result of the Israeli aggression on Tayr Harfa”, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

Workers from MTC Touch and the Ogero telecoms provider were carrying out “maintenance on the transmission poles”, the NNA said, adding they had sought permission from the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, or UNIFIL.

The Risala Scout association that is affiliated with the Amal movement, which operates rescue teams in south Lebanon, said the rescuer was killed when his team went to a location that had come under Israeli bombardment.

“The second strike came quickly, and one of the young men was martyred,” a source from the association told AFP.

At least 402 people have been killed in Lebanon in seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also including 79 civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israel says 14 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Police carried out pre-dawn swoops on students protesting the war in Gaza at two more prestigious US universities Friday, in the latest unrest on campuses across the country.

At least ten people were arrested at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) near Boston in the northeast, according to university president Sally Kornbluth, who said she had “no choice” but to dismantle the “high-risk flashpoint.”

At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, officers in tactical gear forcibly removed several dozen students who had linked arms around a statue of Benjamin Franklin, NBC reported.

Students did not resist arrest at either university and both actions appeared to have been relatively peaceful.

Kornbluth offered a timeline of the weeks of protest and negotiations on the MIT campus, culminating in warnings to the students and finally her decision to ask police to clear the encampment, which she described as a “last resort.”

The encampment had pitted two sides at the university against one another, she wrote.

For the demonstrators, it “symbolized a moral commitment that trumped all other considerations, because of the immense suffering in Gaza.”

But for those supporting Israel, it “delivered a constant assertion, through its signs and chants, that those who believe that Israel has a right to exist are unwelcome at MIT.

“As a result, the encampment became a flashpoint.”

The Israeli military said in a statement on Friday that it had located several tunnels in eastern Rafah and eliminated militants “during close-quarters combat and with an aerial strike”.

Hamas’ military wing said it carried out a complex attack in which it struck a house where Israeli troops had taken up position, an armoured personnel carrier and soldiers operating on foot.

There was no comment from the Israeli military. It was not possible for FRANCE 24 to confirm battlefield accounts from either side.

Hamas also said it launched a number of mortar rounds at the Kerem Shalom crossing, close to where Israeli troops are operating, AP reported. The military said it intercepted two launches.