The UN Palestinian relief agency has a vital role to play in Gaza's reconstruction even though it wasn't consulted on a nascent US peace plan for the territory, its head told AFP Thursday.
UNRWA, the main humanitarian agency for Palestinians, supplied healthcare, welfare and education services in Gaza before Israel launched its devastating assaults on the territory in retaliation for Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Greece will guarantee the safe sailing of boats currently in its waters as part of an international flotilla heading to Gaza, its foreign minister said on Thursday, adding that Athens had informed Israel that Greek citizens were in the flotilla.
The Global Sumud Flotilla is using about 50 civilian boats to try to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Many lawyers and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, are on board.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Russia and China asked the United Nations Security Council to vote on Friday on a draft resolution to delay by six months the reimposition of sanctions on Iran, diplomats said.
All U.N. sanctions on Iran are due to be reimposed at 8 p.m. EDT on Friday (0000 GMT on Saturday) after Britain, France and Germany triggered a 30-day process accusing Tehran of violating a 2015 deal with world powers aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Hezbollah supporters gathered Thursday in the Lebanese capital ahead of the first anniversary of Israel's assassination of their longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose portrait was projected on a Beirut landmark despite opposition from the authorities.
Carrying images of Nasrallah and flags of his Shiite Muslim movement, thousands of supporters of all ages flooded the seaside near Raouche Rock, a natural formation also known as Pigeon Rock just off Beirut's Mediterranean coast, an AFP correspondent said.
Three children play with sand and pebbles among the tombstones in a southern Gaza cemetery, while a teenage boy, barefoot, carries two buckets of water through the graveyard before vanishing into a tent.
These macabre scenes are a daily reality for some displaced Palestinians, who, unable to find shelter elsewhere, have resorted to pitching tents in a cemetery in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
"We had no other choice," said Randa Musleh from inside her tent, drinking tea along with some of her 11 children.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The Global Sumud Flotilla heading to Gaza protected by a Spanish military vessel poses no threat to anyone, including Israel, Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told Reuters on Thursday.
In an interview, Albares added that Spain had accepted Belgium's request to assist Belgian citizens on board the flotilla if needed, and was holding conversations with Ireland on the same subject.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -France has dropped its case before the International Court of Justice against Iran for violating the right to consular protection of two French citizens who have been held in detention for over three years, the court said Thursday.
France has repeatedly accused Iran of holding Cecile Kohler and her partner JacquesParis arbitrarily, keeping them in conditions akin to torture in Tehran's Evin prison and not allowing proper consular protection. Iran denies the accusations.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stop buying Russian oil over the war in Ukraine, while hinting that he may drop a ban on Ankara buying US stealth fighter jets.
Erdogan was making his first visit to the White House since 2019 -- the same year Washington kicked Turkey out of the F-35 jet program over the NATO ally's purchase of a Russian air defense system.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Iranian Vice President Mohammad Eslami said on Thursday that Tehran would continue to pursue its nuclear programme, which he said was open to international scrutiny.
"Iran's path and the Iranian programme are completely transparent, and we will not deviate from it. You know that the most stringent inspections are conducted in Iran," Eslami, who is also Iran's nuclear chief, said via a translator.
He was addressing a nuclear forum in Moscow.
By May Angel
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel will reopen the only crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan to passenger traffic only, starting Friday morning, the Israeli Airports Authority said on Thursday.
Israel shut Allenby Crossing last Friday after a driver bringing humanitarian aid from Jordan for Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli soldiers there. After briefly reopening it on Monday, Israel closed it indefinitely on Tuesday.
