The majority of UN peacekeeping missions are in Africa, including in Central African Republic, Sudan and Western Sahara. However, they've faced increasing blowback and scrutiny over their ability to successfully carry out their missions, including protests in Congo from residents claiming peacekeepers did little to protect them from armed groups.

The operations, which require approval from the UN Security Council to be extended, have gradually gone into retreat in Africa. In June, leaders in Mali requested the United Nations withdraw peacekeeping forces. Leaders from Congo made a similar request to the security council in September.

Congolese President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi said then that the mission had failed to confront fighting, but on Wednesday Lacroix defended the force, telling reporters that the UN had received feedback from residents that they wanted the peacekeepers to do more.

--snip--

The two-day ministerial meeting in Accra is taking place as polarizing divides emerge among United Nations member states about wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Institutions like the United Nations Security Council — which has a mandate to maintain international peace and security — have struggled to reach consensus on Israel's latest war with Hamas militants that began in October when they launched a deadly incursion into southern Israel.

In a rare display of public criticism, a Gaza resident tells the Al-Jazeera TV channel that the lack of aid to residents of the Strip is due to Hamas stealing it.

Asked about the supposed trickle of aid coming into Gaza, the woman, says there is plenty of aid, but “all aid goes down (into Hamas tunnels).”

“The aid does not reach the nation, all the people,” she says.

When the journalist from the pro-Palestinian Qatari channel tells her that only a small amount of aid is coming in and it is all being distributed, she shakes her fingers at him and says: “All of it goes into their houses. They take it and will even shoot me or do whatever they want, Hamas.”

https://twitter.com/GonenYonatan/status/1732514165984518175

The IDF said that it had found one of the largest weapons stockpiles in the history of its operations in Gaza, an arsenal containing hundreds of missiles, launchers, long-range rockets, anti-tank missiles, UAVs, and explosives.

The massive weapons cache was located near a hospital and a school, the IDF reported.

Who stores RPG missiles, anti-tank missiles, explosive devices, long-range missiles, grenades and UAVs at a school and a medical facility in Gaza? The answer: Hamas.Hamas doesn’t hide their terrorism. Stop excusing it. pic.twitter.com/az4Es0Vh5v
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 6, 2023

The terror munitions were discovered by the 50th battalion of the 460th brigade. The IDF said that some of the munitions were detonated on site while others were sent for further investigation.

Egypt has begun building a concrete wall along its border with the Gaza Strip, AFP journalists and a Palestinian security official from the Hamas terror group said Wednesday.

Dozens of workers aided by cranes could be seen erecting the structure, which will stretch some three kilometers (two miles) from Gaza’s southeastern tip at Karem Shalom to the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only gateway out of Gaza that does not lead into Israel.

The wall is being built along the lines of an old, lower barrier that includes an underground structure designed to curb smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. Contacted by AFP, Egypt’s military declined to comment on the new structure.

In a special report, the IDF and the Shin Bet on Tuesday revealed the targeting of senior Hamas members from the Northern Gaza Brigade and the Gaza City Brigade from within the tunnels, with most of these leaders being eliminated during combat.

The Northern Gaza Strip Brigade is the second largest in the Hamas terrorist organization. In the attack on the tunnel where the terrorist organization's commanders were hiding, under civilian homes and near the Indonesian Hospital, IDF forces, guided by the Shin Bet and Military intelligence, eliminated the brigade commander, Ahmed Ehandor, the deputy brigade commander, Al Rajab, and other senior members including the commander of the support battalion, the head of the electronic warfare unit, and the surveillance officer in the Northern Gaza Strip.

--snip--

Simultaneously with the elimination of the commanders in the northern Gaza Brigade, the commander of the Beit Lehia battalion, the commander of the Jabalia Center battalion, and terrorists only in this brigade were also eliminated.

--snip--

Gaza City is a prime example of Hamas' use of the civilian population as human shields. IDF forces, guided by the Shin Bet and military intelligence, eliminated four battalion commanders in the Gaza Brigade, including the commanders of the Sabra, Shati, Daraj Tafah, and Shuja'iya battalions.

Women who were abducted from Israeli territory and held hostage by Hamas in Gaza were kept in cages, according to a report by Israeli media, citing a statement from a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

This claim is not the first of its kind: In the days immediately following the October 7 attacks, videos from Hamas's Telegram channel showed child hostages being kept in cages for the majority of their time in captivity.

Hamas distributed a letter on Monday allegedly written by Danielle Aloni, who was kidnapped alongside her 5-year-old daughter Emilia and held in captivity. In the letter, written in Hebrew and translated into Arabic, she reportedly thanked Hamas for the "extraordinary humanity" provided to her daughter, who "felt like a queen."

The letter also read, "I will forever be a prisoner of love because [Emilia] did not leave here with psychological trauma forever." The Aloni family has not confirmed this letter nor the statements made in it, though it has been widely distributed on social media by the Hamas terror organization.

This letter is one of many that hostages were forced to write, according to Israeli media reports.

Dr. Yael Mozer-Glassberg, director of Israel’s pediatric liver transplantation service at Schneider Children’s Medical Center, has seen some difficult things in her 25-year career. However, nothing in her experience prepared her for treating Israeli hostages freed from Gaza after nearly two months in captivity.

“From the medical point of view, this was a terrible event. Reports that everyone is giving that the returnees are in more or less stable condition are not true,” Mozer-Glassberg.

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Mozer-Glassberg confirmed that the hostages Schneider received had lost 10-15 percent of their body weight. The statistic was similar to one shared by Prof. Itai Pessach at Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center, where other freed hostages were brought.

“The hostages shared with us stories about how limited the food they were given was. If they were given food at all, it was sometimes only a cup of tea and a biscuit or a single dried date in the morning and rice in the evening,” Mozer-Glassberg recounted.

Hostages were given tranquilizers like clonex and other "vitamins" by Hamas to "look happy" during their escort from captivity to Israeli territory, according to Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the medical division of Israel's Health Ministry.

The Health Ministry reviewed the cases of returnees, leading the chairman of the Knesset Health Committee, Yoni Meshariki, to call for a detailed report to be published showing the medical findings of returned hostages to health organizations worldwide.

Mizrahi told the committee that hospitals involved in the intake of released hostages documented a slew of war crimes committed by Hamas regarding the health of abductees. "Some of the crimes are starvation, lack of medical treatment, and prolonged shackles," an additional spokesperson added during the meeting.

--snip--

Relatives call for global action and reports to international health organizations

Yordan Gonen, the sister of Romi Gonen, who was kidnapped and is still in the hands of Hamas terrorists, said that "In the second week of the war, there was a meeting of all the ministers of health in the European Union: did we have representation there? Why didn't the representatives of the Red Cross meet us? Why doesn't the Ministry of Health issue an official report on the health condition of the abductees?"

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[International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim] Khanexplained that his "visit to Israel was conducted at the request of family members and friends of Israeli citizens who were either killed or taken hostage by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups on 7 October 2023."

Next, he said that during his visits to both Kibbutz Be'eri and Kibbutz Kfar Azza, as well as at the site of the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, "I witnessed scenes of calculated cruelty. The attacks against innocent Israeli civilians on 7 October represent some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address."

Reaching out to Israel to sidestep Israeli legal concerns, he said, "I also stand ready to engage with relevant national authorities in line with the principle of complementarity at the heart of the Rome Statute. Such engagement, like my visit, would be without prejudice to the position of Israel on jurisdiction, and as a non-State Party to the Rome Statute."

Further, he stated, "I called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages taken by Hamas and other terror organisations. There can be no justification for the holding of any hostages, and in particular the egregious breach of fundamental principles of humanity through the taking and continued holding of children. Hostages cannot be treated as human shields or bargaining chips."

--snip--

In relation to Gaza, he tried to walk a tightrope, saying, "notwithstanding any ongoing violations of international humanitarian law by Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip, the manner in which Israel responds to these attacks is subject to clear legal parameters that govern armed conflict. Conflict in densely populated areas where fighters are alleged to be unlawfully embedded in the civilian population is inherently complex, but international humanitarian [law] must still apply and the Israeli military knows the law that must be applied."

Khan also said, "Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. Credible allegations of crimes during the current conflict should be the subject of timely, independent examination and investigation. On this visit, I again stressed that the clear legal principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality must be complied with so that the protection of the law is rendered meaningful for those who need it. I emphasized that not only must the letter of the law be complied with, but also the spirit upheld."

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces have found 800 shafts leading to Hamas' vast subterranean network of tunnels and bunkers since a Gaza ground operation began on Oct 27, and have destroyed more than half of them, the military said on Sunday.

The Palestinian Islamist group said before the now eight-week-old war in the Gaza Strip that it had hundreds of kilometres of tunnels - a network comparable in size to the New York subway system - to protect and serve as operational bases.

That has made them prime targets for Israeli air strikes with penetrating munitions and army engineers using mapping robots and exploding gel that can be poured into the passages.

"The tunnel shafts were located in civilian areas, many of which were near or inside civilian buildings and structures, such as schools, kindergartens, mosques and playgrounds," the military said in a statement on Sunday.