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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Yohannes Lowe (now); Kirsty McEwen (earlier)

Middle East crisis: families scavenging for food scraps in Khan Younis, says Unrwa – as it happened

People cluster around holding pots and pans
People wait to receive food distributed by charities in Khan Younis, Gaza on 21 December. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Closing summary

  • Children and families are scavenging through rubbish for “scraps of food to eat” on a daily basis in the southern city of Khan Younis, Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), said. In a video posted to X, she also accused Israel of denying her agency access to landfill sites and said over 1,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulate every day in the devastated city, with disease spreading across the population.

  • At least 45,259 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,627 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since last October, the Gaza health ministry said earlier today. Of those, 32 Palestinians were killed and 54 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.

  • Israeli forces are continuing to attack and besiege the barely functioning Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, according to reports.

  • Turkey believes Syria’s new rulers, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) armed group which Ankara backs, will drive Kurdish YPG fighters from all territory they occupy in northeastern Syria, the country’s defence minister, Yasar Guler, said. Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, meanwhile, met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al Sharaa - also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golan - in Damascus.

  • Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

We are closing this blog now. Thanks for following along. You can find all of our latest Middle East coverage here.

Updated

The Israeli parliament decided in late October to pass a law banning the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, from operating in the country. Unrwa said the new laws – due to come into effect within the next month – will cause the supply chain of aid to Gaza to “fall apart”, excepting an already dire humanitarian crisis, with widespread shortages of food, medicine and clean water across the Strip.

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