GENEVA
\nUnited Nat\u00adions workers observed a minute\u2019s silence and flags flew at half-mast at UN co\u00adm\u00adpounds across the globe on Monday to honour the more than 100 em\u00adp\u00adloyees killed since hostilities began in Gaza last month, the largest dea\u00adth toll of workers in the orga\u00adnisation\u2019s 78-year history.
\nIn Gaza City, witnesses reported intense overnight air strikes with Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles just metres from the Al Shifa hospital.
\nHealth authorities said hospitals in northern Gaza were no longer functioning amid fuel shortages and raging combat.
\nThe United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organisation for supporting Palestinians, said on Friday that 101 of its employees died in Gaza Strip since Oct 7.
\nStaff at UN offices in Geneva bowed their heads as a candle was lit in memory of the deceased UNRWA employees.
\n\u201cThis is the highest nu\u00admber of aid workers kil\u00adl\u00aded in the history of our org\u00adanisation in such a short time,\u201d said Tatiana Valov\u00adaya, Director Gene\u00adral of the UN office in Geneva.
\nIn Geneva, the second-largest UN headquarters after New York, the UN flag flew at half-mast and none of the other flags of the 193 member countries were hoisted along the main alley of the compound.
\nThe blue and white UN flag was lowered at offices in Bangkok, Tokyo and Beijing. Events were also held in Kathmandu and Kabul, where the UN secretary general\u2019s special representative for Afghanistan led about 250 people in observing the minute\u2019s silence.
\nEstablished in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA provides public services including schools, healthcare and aid. Many of UNRWA\u2019s 5,000 employees working in Gaza are Palestinian refugees themselves.
\nHospitals stop functioning
\nThe Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said hospitals in the north were no longer working amid fuel shortages and intense combat, with the death toll inside the territory\u2019s largest facility rising.
\nIsrael alleges Hamas has built its headquarters under the Al Shifa hospital complex, while UN agencies and doctors in the facility warned a lack of generator fuel was claiming lives.
\nThe Gaza government\u2019s deputy health minister Youssef Abu Rish said the death toll inside Al Shifa had risen to 27 adult intensive care patients and seven babies since the weekend as the facility suffered fuel shortages.
\nGaza has been reliant on generators for over a month after Israel cut off power supplies following the Oct 7 raid and the besieged territory\u2019s only power plant ran out of fuel.
\nAbu Rish said all hospitals were out of service in the territory\u2019s north, where black smoke rose from a bombed mosque and a rare person on the street carried a white flag.
\nAccording to the World Health Organisation, nearly 2,300 people \u2014 patients, health workers and people fleeing fighting \u2014 were inside the crippled Al Shifa.
\n\u201cThere are many dead and hundreds of wounded that no one can get to,\u201d the WHO said.
\n\u201cAmbulances are at a standstill because they get shot at when they go out,\u201d hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya said.
\nIsrael is facing intense international pressure to minimise civilian suffering amid its massive air and ground operations that Hamas authorities say have killed 11,180 people, including 4,609 children.
\nIsrael says 44 of its troops have been killed in Gaza Strip.
\nA lack of fuel was also hitting the UNRWA, with the group\u2019s Gaza chief Thomas White saying operations \u201cwill grind to a halt in the next 48 hours as no fuel is allowed to enter\u201d the territory.
\nMore heavy fighting
\nThe Israeli military reported \u201cmore heavy fighting\u201d on Monday. Teams of Israeli troops ran between jagged ruins in Gaza while air strikes shown on grainy military-released video shattered buildings.
\nPalestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh urged the European Union and the United Nations to \u201cparachute aid\u201d into Gaza.
\nIsrael\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas must first release prisoners before any ceasefire would be considered, but he told US media that \u201cthere could be\u201d a deal in the works.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military said it would observe a \u201cself-evacuation corridor\u201d on Monday, allowing people to move from Al Shifa southward, but admitted the area was still the scene of \u201cintense battles\u201d.
\nThe sphere of fighting \u201ccurrently includes the area surrounding the Al Shifa Hospital, but not the hospital itself\u201d, a spokesperson for Israel\u2019s military said.
\nAl Shifa director Abu Salmiya said he told Israeli authorities he needed at least 8,000 litres to run the main generators and \u201csave hundreds of patients and wounded, but they refused\u201d.
\n\u2018Meaningful\u2019 pauses
\nThe European Union\u2019s humanitarian aid chief has called for \u201cmeaningful\u201d pauses in the fighting in Gaza and urgent deliveries of fuel to keep hospitals working.
\n\u201cIt is urgent to define and respect humanitarian pauses,\u201d Janez Lenarcic, European Commissioner for Crisis Management, told a meeting of the bloc\u2019s foreign ministers in Brussels.
\n\u201cFuel needs to get in. As you could see, more than half of the hospitals in Gaza Strip stopped working, primarily because of lack of fuel, and fuel is desperately needed.\u201d
\nThe bloc\u2019s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisted that \u201cGaza needs more aid from any point of view\u201d.
\n\u201cWater, fuel, food. This aid is available, is in the border waiting to come in,\u201d he said.
\nBorrell announced that he would travel to \u201cIsrael, Palestine, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan this week to discuss huma\u00adnitarian access and assistance and political issues with regional leaders\u201d.
\nLuxembourg\u2019s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said that hospitals in Gaza should not be turned into \u201cbattlefields\u201d.
\n\u201cPatients who are in intensive care units have no chance,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThere is no more oxygen, there is no more water, there are no more medicines. So these people are going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA United Nat\u00adions workers observed a minute\u2019s silence and flags flew at half-mast at UN co\u00adm\u00adpounds across the globe on Monday to honour the more than 100 em\u00adp\u00adloyees killed since hostilities began in Gaza last month, the largest dea\u00adth toll of workers in the orga\u00adnisation\u2019s 78-year history. In Gaza City, witnesses reported intense overnight air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n