Calls for humanitarian ceasefire are made by charities and UN agencies

In a rare united statement, UN organisations and foreign NGOs demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

“For almost a month” according to the statement, “the world has been watching the unfolding situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in shock and horror at the spiralling numbers of lives lost and torn apart.”

The statement stated that “tens of thousands of people have been displaced.” “This is horrific.”

The organisations reported that around 200 persons were held captive and at least 1,400 people were slain in Israel.

The agencies declared that “the horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza is an outrage,” along with “the denial of food, water, medicine, electricity, and fuel to 2.2 million Palestinians.”

The agencies declared, “Enough is enough,” in their statement. “This must stop now.”

The organisations that released the statement were Mercy Corps, CARE International, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Food Programme, and WHO.

Israel claimed on Sunday that the Palestinian territories had been divided in two by its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Secretary of State of the United States Antony Blinken is working feverishly to contain a catastrophe that might spread throughout the region.

Sunday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Blinken met with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.

In addition, he surprised everyone by travelling to Baghdad and meeting with Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the prime minister of Iraq. The two talked about the battle between Israel and Hamas and how it must be stopped from expanding, especially to Iraq.

Blinken will discuss the Gaza situation with Turkish authorities in Ankara on Monday.

Speaking to pilots on Sunday at the Ramon Air Force Base in southern Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated his earlier statement that “there will be no cease-fire without the return of our hostages.”

We address both our adversaries and our allies with this. We’re going to keep going until we defeat them,” he said.

Only hours after telecommunications were cut off for a third time, the Hamas authorities in Gaza announced “intense bombings” around multiple hospitals in the northern part of the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening. It was not possible to independently verify the reports.

The Palestinian telecoms operator Paltel said on Sunday that all internet and communication services have once again been suspended in Gaza. This is the third time that internet and telecommunication services have been unavailable in Palestinian territory.

The spokesman for the United Nations organisation for Palestinian refugees, Juliette Touma, told The Associated Press, “We have lost communication with the vast majority of the UNRWA team members.” 36 hours passed during the first Gaza outage, and a few hours during the second.

After an Israeli bomb hit a car on Sunday, killing three children and their grandmother, Hezbollah declared that Israel would “pay the price.” Israel, on the other hand, claimed that its strikes were retaliation for a Hezbollah missile attack that claimed the life of an Israeli person. Israel added that it downed a drone belonging to Hezbollah.

READ ALSO: Who has replaced France in the new security order being constructed by African countries?

Moreover, CIA Director William Burns is visiting “several countries in the Middle East,” a U.S. official informed VOA on Sunday.

The U.S. official told VOA that the trip’s main objectives include the Gaza situation, assistance for the hostage discussions, and ongoing deterrence to keep the Israel-Hamas confrontation from getting worse.

According to the U.S. official, “the Director will reinforce our commitment to intelligence cooperation, especially in areas such as security and counterterrorism.”

The Central Intelligence Agency responded to VOA’s inquiry by saying, “We don’t comment on the director’s schedule.”

Speaking in the West Bank, Abbas called for a quick Israeli cease-fire, citing reports from Gaza’s health ministry that an attack on a refugee camp overnight claimed many lives. Blinken has demanded humanitarian breaks from the fighting, a request that Israel has thus far refused.

Blinken’s surprise trip to Ramallah, in the West Bank, came after his Saturday gathering in Amman, Jordan, with Arab leaders. Late on Sunday, he arrived in Turkey.

Israel declared on Sunday that “over 2,500 terror targets have been struck” since it began its assault against Hamas on October 7. Israel claimed that “the combined activities” of its air, ground, and naval troops were responsible for hitting the targets.

Health officials in Gaza, governed by Hamas, report that Israeli military operations have claimed the lives of over 9,700 Palestinians.

In a social media post, the World Health Organisation stated that it has recorded 102 strikes on Gaza Strip medical institutions since October 7. These attacks have resulted in “504 fatalities, 459 injuries, damage to 39 facilities and affected 31 ambulances.”

More than half of the hospitals attacked, according to the U.N. agency, were in Gaza City.

In the meantime, Israel was receiving backing from its previous prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison of Britain and Australia, respectively.

“I am grateful for the chance to accompany former Prime Minister Johnson to visit Israel as a show of solidarity with the people and state of Israel and the Jewish community throughout the world,” Morrison stated on Sunday.