- The UN Security Council is to vote on a demand for a ceasefire in Gaza, with its chief urging action to avert a “humanitarian catastrophe”
- Meanwhile, footage appears to show Israeli forces detaining a group of Palestinian men who have been stripped to their underwear and blindfolded
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says there is a “complete lack of safety and security” for his staff in Gaza, who are facing an “unprecedented threat.”
Some 130 UN staff members have already been killed, many with their families, representing the “largest single loss of life in the history of our organisation,” Mr Guterres said.
Some staff members are taking their children to work with them so they can live or die together, he added.
There is no way of mitigating the dangers short of evacuating staff – and they are “committed to stay and deliver for the people of Gaza” – Mr Guterres said.
The situation is now “untenable” and “conditions for the effective delivery of humanitarian aid no longer exist”.
Mr Guterres urges the Security Council to push for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for the protection of civilians and to allow for the delivery of lifesaving aid.
He says he is pressing to avert a “humanitarian catastrophe”, describing how Gazans are now suffering without food and at risk of disease and starvation.
The secretary-general also condemns the Hamas attacks on Israel, saying nothing can justify the killings of 1,100 people, and calls for the release of Israeli hostages.
However, he says the attacks “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official has accused Israeli forces of carrying out a “heinous crime against innocent civilians,” referring to a video appearing to show Palestinians stripped to their underwear while being detained.
Izzat El-Reshiq, who is in exile abroad, called on international human rights organisations to intervene and find out what happened to the men.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is concerned by the images.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said: “We’re talking about military age men who were discovered in areas that civilians have evacuated weeks ago.
“Those individuals will be questioned and we will work out who indeed is a Hamas terrorist and who is not.
“It’s important we talk about people we located – [they] are military aged men located in areas in which the IDF have been engaging in.
“Hamas fighters have been deliberately disguising themselves as civilians. We will work out who needs to be detained, arrested and put to justice.”
Some Palestinians have said they recognise relatives in the footage and denied they have any links to Hamas.
However, Israeli government Spokesperson Mark Regev has defended the video, telling the BBC: “We are searching out those responsible for the massacre of October 7, and if we gather people together to find out which ones of them are responsible, whose name and face fits with the photographs of people beheading people or raping women or so forth, this is what we will do.
“And if you say ‘well some of them are UN workers’ well the fact that they work for a UN organisation doesn’t mean particularly that they are not a member of Hamas.”
