United Nations

Aid deliveries have begun arriving at a US-built pier off the Gaza Strip as Israel comes under growing global pressure to allow more supplies into the besieged coastal enclave, where it is at war with Palestinian militants Hamas and a famine looms.

It is imperative to "halt hostilities and immediately put an end to the bloodshed and allow humanitarian aid to flow unimpeded into Gaza," Foreign Affairs Minister George Gerapetritis has said, after meeting with this Canadian counterpart in Athens.

The first trucks began supplying aid to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip via a temporary pier on Friday, the U.S. military said, as fighting raged in the Palestinian territory.

U.S. Central Command said "trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore" via the long-awaited pier, a day after it was anchored to a Gaza beach.

Israel will on Friday hit back in the United Nations' top court at allegations from South Africa that it has escalated a campaign of "genocide" with its military operation in Rafah.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard a litany of allegations against Israel from lawyers representing Pretoria, including mass graves, torture, and deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.

South Africa accused Israel Thursday at the top U.N. court of stepping up what it called a "genocide" in Gaza, urging the court to order a halt to Israel's assault on Rafah.

"South Africa had hoped, when we last appeared before this court, to halt this genocidal process to preserve Palestine and its people," Vusimuzi Madonsela told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

This handout satellite image courtesy of Maxar Technologies shows tents and shelters for Palestinians displaced by the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas at the Mawasi camp near Rafah in the south of the Palestinian territory on May 15, 2024.

U.S. troops early Thursday anchored a long-awaited temporary pier, meant to boost aid deliveries into war-ravaged Gaza, to a beach in the besieged Palestinian territory, the U.S. military said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday insisted there was no "humanitarian catastrophe" in Rafah, even as hundreds of thousands fled the south Gaza city amid intense bombardments.

Chances of restarting formal talks to mend Cyprus' decades-long ethnic division appeared dimmer Wednesday as the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots told a UN envoy that he saw no common ground with Greek Cypriots for a return to negotiations.

BELGRADE - Serbian PM Milos Vucevic received Azerbaijani Ambassador to Belgrade Kamil Hasiyev on Wednesday.

Vucevic said Azerbaijan's principled position on Serbia's territorial integrity and sovereignty when it comes to the Kosovo-Metohija issue was extremely important to Belgrade, the Serbian government said in a statement.