The death toll in the war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon exceeds 3,000

The death toll in Lebanon surpassed 3,000 on Monday in the 13-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The vast majority have been killed since hostilities escalated dramatically in mid-September and Israel invaded southern Lebanon on October 1.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, more than 13,000 people were injured. More than a million people have been displaced in the small country. Israel says hundreds of Hezbollah members are among the dead. It also managed to assassinate the group's supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several senior commanders.

According to the Prime Minister's Office, 72 people were killed in Israel by Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks, including 30 soldiers.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for “immediate international pressure” to end the war with Israel, protect civilians and medical teams from attacks and protect the country's cultural heritage, the National News Agency reported on Monday. Israel has carried out repeated airstrikes on the ancient cities of Tire and Baalbek, risking damage to their ancient ruins.

Mikati also discussed the situation with the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – as well as the European Union.

In neighboring Syria, the state news agency reported an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Damascus, saying it caused material damage but no casualties. The Israeli military said its air force struck Hezbollah targets belonging to the group's intelligence headquarters in Syria.

In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes on Monday killed at least a dozen Palestinians in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, which came under renewed intense Israeli attacks last month. Israel says Hamas militants are regrouping in northern Gaza, issuing evacuation orders for remaining residents and stepping up attacks on Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.

The area's hospitals also came under fire and only three are still partially functioning.

“The Indonesian hospital is no longer functional; Kamal Adwan and al Awda are minimally functional,” Rik Peeperkorn, World Health Organization representative in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, told reporters in a video call from Gaza on Monday. He said if a planned WHO mission later this week is not approved, Al Awda will also be decommissioned “very quickly.”

The United Nations has repeatedly said it faces obstacles from Israel in providing assistance, particularly in northern Gaza. Peeperkorn said there were very few missions to the north across all U.N. agencies in October – they “were canceled, were hampered, were delayed.”

Currently, private imports are “virtually banned” and Israeli authorities allow the use of only three border crossings into Gaza – Kerem Shalom, Gate 96 (near the central Gaza Strip) and Erez West.

“Moreover, humanitarian colleagues can only reach these border areas via extremely dangerous routes,” said UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric. “Use of most of the roads leading to these entry points have either been banned by the Israeli authorities or made unsafe due to ongoing hostilities.”

He said available routes were often in poor condition and vulnerable to looting by armed men.

The United Nations is also in the final stages of a massive polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, where the disease has been detected in wastewater. Peeperkorn said the goal is to vaccinate nearly 600,000 children under 10 across the territory. Teams have achieved more than 95% coverage in southern and central Gaza, and in the first two days of vaccinations in northern Gaza, they reached nearly 95,000 children, or about 79% of their goal.

Israel denounces UNRWA

Israel's Foreign Ministry said on Monday that the country had formally notified the United Nations that it would not cooperate with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, once new Israeli laws come into force early next year.

The move follows the Israeli parliament's passage of a law cutting ties with the agency and banning it from operating in Israel.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence we presented to the United Nations supporting Hamas’s infiltration of UNRWA, the United Nations has done nothing to improve the situation,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement.

Israel has long been critical of UNRWA and accuses some of its employees of involvement in the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel has provided little evidence to support its claims, and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said last week that the agency had received no response to its repeated requests to Israel to provide such information. Where it received evidence, it acted.

UNRWA is the main distributor of aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where virtually the entire population is in need of humanitarian assistance.

Israel's letter to the United Nations states that the country will “continue to work with international partners, including other United Nations agencies, to ensure that humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza is facilitated in a manner that supports… Israel’s security is not undermined.”

“If the law is fully implemented and the Israeli government makes it impossible for UNRWA to operate, this will have no impact on Israel’s responsibility to care for the population,” UN spokesman Dujarric said. He noted that UNRWA continues to operate in Gaza.

A group of about 50 countries led by Turkey has sent a letter to the president of the UN General Assembly calling for a halt to the transfer of arms and ammunition to Israel if there are reasonable suspicions that they are being used against the Palestinians.

“We urge you to take all necessary steps immediately,” the letter said.

Israel's envoy dismissed the move as “another ridiculous move by the Axis of Evil to act against Israel at the international level.”

The letter is signed by, among others, Turkey, the Palestinian Authority, Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia as well as the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

More than a year ago, Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages in their Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the current war. Israel believes Hamas is still holding 101 hostages, including 35 who the military says are dead.

The Israeli counteroffensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 43,300 Palestinians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its counts.

Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated terrorist groups by the United States and other Western countries.

VOA UN correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some material came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.