In Lebanon, Israeli strikes point to a precarious ceasefire

NEW YORK: The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs warned the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the aid crisis in Gaza is worsening, as Israel resumed airstrikes across the territory and continued to block vital supplies.

“Overnight our worst fears materialized,” Tom Fletcher told council members.

“Airstrikes resumed across the entire Gaza Strip. (Reports) of hundreds of people killed. New evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces. Once again, the people of Gaza are living in abject fear.”

Fletcher added the situation had returned to chaos, undermining the modest gains made during a recent ceasefire.

Humanitarian efforts in Gaza were severely hampered following the resumption of hostilities, he said.

“Today, I am distressed to report that in addition to the intense airstrikes that have resumed, since March 2 Israeli authorities have cut off the entry of all lifesaving supplies — food, medicines, fuel, cooking gas — for 2.1 million people,” Fletcher said.

“Our repeated requests to collect aid sitting at Karem Shalom crossing have also been systematically rejected. No further hostages have been released. Only medical evacuations and humanitarian staff rotations continued. Even that came to a halt today.”

The blockade has worsened living conditions, with essential services such as clean water becoming increasingly scarce.

Fletcher highlighted that the shutdown of Gaza’s desalination plant has left 600,000 people without access to safe drinking water.

“The current suspension of aid and commercial materials is reversing the progress achieved during the brief ceasefire. Survival resources are now being rationed,” he said, adding that vegetable prices in northern Gaza have tripled, while bakeries have closed due to shortages of cooking gas and supplies.

The World Health Organization has warned that public health risks remain very high, including for communicable diseases resulting from overcrowding and poor sanitation.

Fletcher again raised concerns about the growing challenges facing humanitarian workers, with the new restrictions imposed on international NGOs since the Knesset legislation banning the aid agency UNRWA took effect on Jan. 30.

“UNRWA international staff are no longer able to rotate into and out of Gaza,” he said.

Fletcher said that on March 9, Israeli authorities introduced new registration rules for international NGOs delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the territory. If enforced, these will impose strict conditions and significantly disrupt aid operations.

“The Israeli Knesset is also considering a bill to impose considerable taxation on donations from third states to Israeli NGOs, including humanitarian and human rights groups.

“If implemented, this would further erode the number of partners with the capacity to implement protection interventions.

“Many Israeli NGOs are engaged on legal cases involving home demolitions and forced evictions. They also provide protective presence activities related to settler violence.”

Fletcher underscored the success of the 42-day ceasefire, which allowed deliveries from more than 4,000 aid trucks per week, the release of 30 hostages, and the distribution of essential resources to over 2 million people.

“This proves what’s possible when we’re allowed to do our job,” Fletcher said. “We cannot accept a return to pre-ceasefire conditions or the complete denial of humanitarian relief.”

The UN official also expressed grave concern about escalating violence in the West Bank, where 95 Palestinians, including 17 children, have been killed since the beginning of the year, and over 40,000 Palestinians forced from their homes by Israeli military operations.

Fletcher called for immediate action, urging that humanitarian aid and commercial goods be allowed to enter Gaza, and that hostilities cease with the renewal of a ceasefire agreement.

He warned that without funding for the humanitarian response, which has received only 4 percent of the required financial support, the situation will worsen.

“Blocking food, water, and medicine for people who need them is unconscionable,” Fletcher said. “It goes against international humanitarian law and must be stopped immediately.”

BNEI BRAK, Israel: One of Israel’s most divisive domestic issues has reared itself again to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a group in the ruling coalition said it would bring the government down unless it exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service.
Some members of United Torah Judaism, one of two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties in the coalition, said in a letter that they would vote against the budget if the government did not pass a new law formalising exemptions for religious students.
“If this matter is once again sidelined or delayed for any reason, we will not be able to continue as partners in the coalition,” said the March 6 letter signed by Housing Minister and party chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf and two others.
The government must pass the budget by the end of the month or call snap elections. United Torah Judaism holds seven seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
It is too early to predict the consequences. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a proven master at smoothing over disagreements in his coalitions. An ultra-nationalist group that quit the government over the ceasefire in Gaza in January announced on Tuesday it was returning.
But pollster Mitchell Barak, who worked for Netanyahu in the 1990s, said this time ultra-Orthodox politicians appeared unwilling to compromise, and the prime minister might have to look outside the coalition for support to pass the budget, an extraordinary step.
“He’s going to look for someone who can compromise, save him, and be that ‘freyer’,” he said, speaking before the ultra-nationalists announced their return to the coalition and using a Yiddish word for someone who lets others take advantage of him. “That’s how he operates.”
The prime minister’s office declined to comment on the ultra-Orthodox ultimatum and whether he believed the budget could pass without their support.

MILITARY STRAINED
In Israel, military service is mandatory at age 18, after which Israelis become reservists liable to be called up for training or deployment.
But dating back to Israel’s founding in 1948 it made an exemption for ultra-Orthodox communities, known as Haredim, whose young men mainly dedicate their lives to studying religious texts in academies known as yeshivot.
Those communities were initially small but have grown rapidly in the following decades. According to government data, there are now 1.4 million Haredim, accounting for about 14 percent of the population, deepening resentment among other Israelis who are conscripted.
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the exemption was unconstitutional, and last year it ordered the military to conscript yeshiva students. Legal experts say the only way to restore the exemption would be to pass a new law enshrining it.
Members of the Haredi community say they would resist any attempt to conscript their children.
“They can put us in prison,” said Yehoshua Menuchin at his home in Bnei Brak, a densely populated city close to Tel Aviv where many Haredim live.
Menuchin, who has a 19-year-old son who is not serving, said the debate was driven by politics, rather than by genuine military need.
“If it’s a matter of survival, like an Arab invasion, then the Haredim will be the first to volunteer in order to save lives. But as long as it is political, it won’t ever happen.”
But 18 months into war in Gaza and major military operations in the West Bank and Lebanon, resentment is growing, and many lawmakers say the exemption is unjustifiable.
“They don’t know what 30 days of reserve duty a year is, and they don’t know what it is to dread that knock on the door,” centrist opposition lawmaker Elazar Stern, a former general, told Reuters, referring to the moment a parent learns of a child’s death in service.

DIVINE INTERVENTION
The Haredim live in insular neighborhoods centered around strict religious observance, with their own schools that largely eschew math and science. They have twice as many children as the national average, rely heavily on state welfare and charity, and those who work are often in low-paying jobs.
They believe that sending their children to the military is an existential threat, fearing that exposure to secular Israelis and outside influences could undermine their way of life.
“I know one thing: we must go the way the Torah instructs us,” said Meir Zvi Bergman, one of Israel’s most widely followed Haredi rabbis. “God does not want us to go, so we won’t go.”
The army says it is working to create conditions to make it easier for more Haredim to serve, such as dedicated battalions with strict religious practices, including regular prayer and gender segregation.
“The responsibility to defend the country must be shared fairly,” Eyal Zamir, Israel’s new chief of the military staff, said in a speech this month taking up his post. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Steven Scheer)