By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Hundreds of U.N. staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Volker Turk have asked him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter sent on Wednesday said the staff consider that the legal criteria for genocide in the nearly two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have been met, citing the scale, scope and nature of violations documented there.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -More food aid is reaching Gaza but it still remains far from enough to prevent widespread starvation, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters on Thursday.

"We're getting a little bit more food in. We're moving in the right direction ... but it's not nearly enough to do what we need to do to make sure that people are not malnourished and not starving," WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain told Reuters in an interview via video link from Jerusalem.

By John Irish, Parisa Hafezi and Michelle Nichols

PARIS/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Britain, France and Germany will begin the process of reimposing U.N. sanctions on Iran at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, two European diplomats said.

The trio, known as the E3, met Iran on Tuesday to try to revive diplomacy over the nuclear programme before they lose the ability in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two Microsoft employees were fired on Wednesday after taking part in a sit-in at the office of the company's president to protest the firm's ties to Israel as it wages war in Gaza.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the workers were terminated following "serious breaches of company policies and our code of conduct" stemming from "the break-in at the executive offices."

Anna Hattle and Riki Fameli received voicemails informing them that they were fired, the protest group No Azure for Apartheid said in a statement.

By Joe Cash and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un will attend a military parade in Beijing, marking the first public appearance of the two leaders alongside President Xi Jinping in a show of collective defiance amid Western pressure.

No Western leaders will be among the 26 foreign heads of state and government attending the parade next week with the exception of Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, a European Union member state, according to the Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday.

The UN Security Council is set to vote Thursday on the future of the blue helmet peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon, which has faced US and Israeli opposition.

Some 10,800 peacekeepers have been acting as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon since 1978. But the usual renewal of their mandate, which expires Sunday, is facing hostility this year from Israel and its American ally, who want them to leave.

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Iran has launched a speedy clean-up operation at a nuclear-related site in northern Tehran hit by Israeli airstrikes that will likely remove evidence of any nuclear weapons development work, a research group said on Wednesday.

Satellite imagery "shows a significant effort by Iran to rapidly demolish damaged or destroyed buildings, likely to sanitize any incriminating nuclear weapons research and development activities," the Institute for Science and International Security said.

By Raphael Satter

(Reuters) -An Israeli official accused of trying to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex outside Las Vegas has been ordered to appear via videolink next week after he missed his arraignment hearing on Wednesday, local media reported.

Tom Alexandrovich, a senior cybersecurity official with the Israeli government, was one of eight people arrested as part of a multi-week operation by Nevada and federal authorities targeting "child sex predators," according to an August 15 statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations Security Council will vote on Thursday to extend a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon until the end of 2026, when the operation will then begin a year-long "orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal," diplomats said.

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978, patrols Lebanon's southern border with Israel. The mandate for the operation is renewed annually, and its current authorization expires on August 31.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, asked on Wednesday what the plan was for a Palestinian state, said there would not be any.

Saar made the comment to reporters following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington that the foreign minister described as "very good."

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; editing by Diane Craft)