By SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN

Jerusalem (AP) – Israel’s parliament is scheduled to vote Monday on two bills that would effectively cut ties with the UN agency responsible for the distribution of aid in Gazastrips his legal immunities and limits his ability to support Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

If passed, the bills would signal a new low in relations between Israel and the agency known as UNRWA, which Israel accuses of maintaining close ties to Hamas fighters. The changes would also be a serious blow to the agency and to Palestinians in Gaza, who have become dependent on it for aid from a year of devastating war.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The bills risk crippling the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza at a time when the United States is pressing Israel to allow more critical supplies. More than 1.9 million Palestinians are displaced from their homes, and Gaza faces widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.

Israel stated that some of the thousands of UNRWA staff members participated in the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 which started the war in Gaza. It also said that hundreds of its staff members had links to the fighters and that it had found Hamas military assets near or under UNRWA facilities. The agency denies knowingly aiding armed groups and says it is moving quickly to remove any suspected fighters from its ranks.

The bills, which do not include provisions for alternative organizations to oversee their work, have been heavily criticized by international aid groups and a handful of Israel’s Western allies.

One bill would effectively prevent UNRWA from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories; the other would prevent them from operating in East Jerusalem. UNRWA provides education, health care and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

If approved, the bills would take effect 60 to 90 days after Israel’s Foreign Ministry notifies the UN, according to a spokesman for lawmaker Dan Illouz, one of the co-sponsors of one of the bills.

“If it passes and if it’s implemented, it’s a disaster,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications. “UNRWA is the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza… Who can do its job?”

Gaza death toll exceeds 43,000 as Israeli raids continue

With no end to the war, Gaza officials reported on Monday that the death toll from the year-long fighting had exceeded 43,000. The Palestinian Health Ministry count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

The rising death toll comes as Israel refocuses its offensive on Gaza’s hard-hit north, including a hospital where the army says fighters were operating.

Israeli forces attacked the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on Friday. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations, said there had been heavy fighting around the hospital, though not inside it, and that weapons had been found inside the facility. The military said on Monday that the raid was over.

Israel has attacked several hospitals in Gaza during the year-long war, saying Hamas and other fighters are using them for military purposes. Palestinian medical officials deny the allegations and accuse the army of recklessly endangering civilians.

The Israeli military said it detained 100 suspected Hamas fighters in the latest raid. The Israeli official said medical personnel were detained and searched because some of the fighters disguised themselves as doctors.

The World Health Organization accused Israel of detaining 44 male hospital staff. It was not immediately clear why there was a discrepancy in the numbers. Palestinian medical officials said the hospital, which was treating about 200 patients, was badly damaged in the raid.

The Israeli army has called on Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza, where it has been waging an offensive for more than three weeks. The official said the operation in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya would last “a few more weeks”.

The The UN said earlier this month that at least 400,000 people it is in northern Gaza, an area that was an early target of Israel’s war of reprisals. Hunger there is widespread as the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the north has dwindled in the past month.

Israeli airstrikes hit Lebanese city and oil prices fall after Israel attack on Iran

The Israel-Hamas war started after terrorists from Hamas and other groups entered Israel, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping another 250. The war rocked the Middle East, sparking fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as between Israel and Iran, enemies who have long kept their conflict a war in shadow, but now engages in open combat.

In Lebanon, successive Israeli airstrikes hit the southern port city of Tire following an evacuation order by the Israeli army for parts of the city, the national news agency reported. No casualties were immediately reported.

The reverberations of Israel’s strike on Iran over the weekend were felt in global financial markets on Monday. Oil prices fell in a sign of easing world supplies after Israel’s revenge strike it targeted Iranian military sites rather than its energy infrastructure as feared.

Oil prices rise after Iran fired nearly 200 rockets into Israel on Oct. 1, part of a rapidly escalating series of attacks between Israel and Iran — and the militant groups it supports — that threatened to push the Middle East closer to a regional war.

Iran is the world’s seventh largest oil producer, but if the conflict in the Middle East were to expand, it could attract some of the world’s biggest energy producers.

It is it is not clear how Iran might respond at Israel’s weekend strike, which damaged at least two secret Iranian military bases. A carefully worded statement from Iran’s military late Saturday appeared to offer some wiggle room for the Islamic Republic to back away from further escalation. He suggested that a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon was more important than any retaliation against Israel.

International mediators are renewing efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza

After collapsing in late summer, international mediators were trying to jump-start ceasefire efforts between Israel and Hamas. Israel said it would continue talks on ending the fighting after Mossad chief David Barnea returned from a meeting in Qatar with CIA chief David Burns and the Qatari prime minister.

Mediators are trying different proposals to try to bring Israel and Hamas to an agreement. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has suggested a two-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of four hostages.

Israel seemed receptive to the idea. An Israeli official said Israel was discussing the proposal both internally and with Egyptian officials. A second official said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed enthusiasm for the proposal in a meeting with his Likud party on Monday.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations on the proposal with the media.

Hamas has yet to formally respond to the plan, and Hamas officials could not be reached for comment Monday.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Michelle Chapman in New York and Julia Frankel and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed.

Originally published: Oct 28, 2024 at 9:07 am MDT