Hunger was worsening among Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, aid agencies said, as the United Nations General Assembly prepared to vote on Tuesday on an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the two-month-old conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The U.N. World Food Programme has said half of the population is starving. "Hunger stalks everyone," UNRWA, the U.N. body responsible for Palestinian refugees, said on X. Gazans said people forced to flee repeatedly were dying of hunger and cold as well as the bombardments, describing looting of aid trucks and sky-high prices.
The 193-member General Assembly is likely on Tuesday to pass a draft resolution that mirrors the language of one that was blocked by the United States in the 15-member Security Council last week.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight and reflect global views.
Some diplomats and observers predict the vote will garner greater support than the assembly's October call for "an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce."
The White House also said on Monday it was concerned about reports Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon and was seeking more information. The munitions, which can be legally used on battlefields to make smoke screens among other uses, can cause serious burns. Israel said an allegation by Human Rights Watch that it uses white phosphorus munitions in Gaza and Lebanon was "unequivocally false".
U.N. officials say 1.9 million people - 85% of Gaza's population - are displaced and describe the conditions in the southern areas where they have concentrated as hellish. To increase the amount of aid reaching Gaza, Israel said on Monday it would add shipment screening at the Kerem Shalom border crossing even though it was not opening the crossing itself.
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