Crimes Against Humanity

The International Criminal Court confirmed 39 charges against Kony, paving the way for a trial if he is ever captured.

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have confirmed war crimes and crimes against humanity charges against Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, nearly two decades after the court first issued a warrant for his arrest.

Kony, who remains at large, faces 39 charges, including murder, sexual enslavement and rape, making him the ICC’s longest-standing fugitive.

Judges from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber III said there are “substantial grounds to believe that Mr Kony is criminally responsible for the crimes” committed in northern Uganda between 2002 and 2005, when he commanded the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Besides crimes committed by his rebels, the judges said Kony could also be held responsible for 10 crimes he allegedly committed himself, linked to two women he forced to become his wives.

“Mr Kony issued standing orders to attack civilian settlements, kill and mistreat civilians, loot and destroy their property and abduct children and women to be integrated into the LRA,” the judges said in their ruling.

The ruling marks the first time the ICC has confirmed charges in a suspect’s absence, meaning the case can formally proceed to trial if Kony is ever captured. Under ICC rules, a full trial cannot begin without the defendant’s presence in court.

Prosecutors said efforts to track down and arrest Kony, now 64, are ongoing.

The ICC’s decision followed a three-day hearing in September in which prosecutors and victims’ lawyers presented evidence and testimony without Kony present – an unusual procedure that set the stage for Thursday’s ruling.

Years of investigations and witness accounts formed the basis of the decision.

Emerging from northern Uganda’s Acholi region in the late 1980s, Kony’s LRA combined Christian mysticism with an armed rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni’s government.

The United Nations estimates about 100,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced during the conflict.

Even after being pushed out of Uganda, LRA fighters launched deadly raids across South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, burning villages, looting communities and abducting tens of thousands of children – the abducted boys forced to fight and girls forced into sexual slavery.

Kony came back into international focus in 2012 when a viral video about his crimes led to the #Kony2012 campaign on social media.

Despite the global attention and years of military operations to apprehend Kony, he remains at large.

After months of blockade and starvation in Gaza, Israel allowed a new United States venture – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – to distribute food. Branded as a lifeline, its sites quickly became known by Palestinians and dozens of human rights groups as “death traps”.

Fault Lines investigates how civilians seeking aid were funnelled through militarised zones, where thousands were killed or injured under fire.

Through the testimonies of grieving families, a former contractor, and human rights experts, the film exposes how GHF’s operations replaced UNRWA’s proven aid system with a scheme critics say was designed for displacement, not relief. At the heart of this investigation is a haunting question: was GHF delivering humanitarian aid – or helping turn breadlines into killing fields?

The Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are collecting bodies after the deadly takeover of North Darfur capital, US researcher says.

A researcher at Yale University in the United States says the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are digging mass graves in el-Fasher, the city in Sudan’s western Darfur region that has seen mass killings and displacement since the RSF took over last month.

Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale’s School of Public Health, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the RSF “have begun to dig mass graves and to collect bodies throughout the city”.

“They are cleaning up the massacre,” Raymond said.

The RSF seized control of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, on October 26, after the withdrawal of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which has been fighting the paramilitary group for control of Sudan since April 2023.

More than 70,000 people have fled the city and surrounding areas since the RSF’s takeover, according to the United Nations, while witnesses and human rights groups have reported cases of “summary executions”, sexual violence and massacres of civilians.

A report from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab on October 28 also found evidence of “mass killings” since the RSF took control of el-Fasher, including apparent pools of blood that were visible in satellite imagery.

UN officials also warned this week that thousands of people are believed to be trapped in el-Fasher.

“The current insecurity continues to block access, preventing the delivery of life-saving assistance to those trapped in the city without food, water and medical care,” Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet, a senior UN refugee agency (UNHCR) official in Sudan, said.

Sudanese journalist Abdallah Hussain explained that, before the RSF’s full takeover, el-Fasher was already reeling from an 18-month siege imposed by the paramilitary group.

“No aid was allowed to access the city, and no healthcare facilities [were] operating,” Hussain told Al Jazeera from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday. “Now it’s getting even worse for the citizens who remain trapped.”

Amid global condemnation, the RSF and its supporters have tried to downplay the atrocities committed in el-Fasher, accusing allied armed groups of being responsible.

The RSF’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, has also promised an investigation.

But Raymond at the Humanitarian Research Lab said: “if they want to actually have an investigation, then they need to withdraw from the city [and] let UN personnel and the Red Cross and humanitarians enter … and go house-to-house looking to see who’s still alive”.

“At this point, we can’t let the RSF investigate themselves,” he said.

Raymond added that, based on UN figures and what can be seen on the ground in el-Fasher, “more people could have died [in 10 days]… than have died in the past two years of the war in Gaza”.

“That’s what we’re talking about. That’s not hyperbole,” he told Al Jazeera, stressing that thousands of people need emergency assistance.

More than 68,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023.

This major investigative documentary examines the facts surrounding the murder of Palestinian American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, as she was reporting in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in May 2022.

It sets out to discover who killed her – and after months of painstaking research, succeeds in identifying the Israeli sniper who pulled the trigger.

It gets through the smokescreens of both the Israeli and US governments and reveals how the close political relationship between them frustrated efforts to obtain justice at the time.

Through interviews with an Israeli former national security adviser, a former deputy assistant US secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, Israeli soldiers and Shireen’s colleagues and family, the film challenges official versions of events – and, in doing so, highlights issues of accountability, press freedom and the geopolitical dynamics surrounding the case, particularly in the light of the Israeli killing of Anas al-Sharif and four of his Al Jazeera colleagues in Gaza in August 2025.

Tens of thousands of people in Sudan have fled el-Fasher and the advance of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the Darfur region. Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan reports from a camp for displaced civilians in the neighbouring Northern State where people are in desperate need of assistance.

The Israeli military’s top lawyer, Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, has resigned after admitting to leaking footage showing the gang rape of a prisoner at the Sde Temain prison facility in August last year.

The video of the rape had originally been leaked to the press in early August in the midst of a right-wing backlash following the arrest of a number of soldiers for the rape of a Palestinian prisoner.

In her resignation statement on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi blamed pressure from the right-wing on her rape investigation for her decision to leak the footage, claiming that she was countering “false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities”.

In the leaked footage, soldiers can be seen grabbing and leading away a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner before surrounding him with riot shields to obscure the rape.

“For 15 minutes, the accused kicked the detainee, stomped on him, stood on his body, hit him and pushed him all over his body, including with clubs, dragged his body along the ground, and used a taser gun on him, including on his head,” the original indictment stated.

According to medical information obtained by the Israeli daily Haaretz, the victim suffered a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs as a result of the assault. He later required surgery.

What happened to the soldiers?

At least nine soldiers were detained in connection with the man’s rape. All but five were released relatively quickly.

In February, the remaining soldiers were indicted for “severely abusing” the detainee, but not raping him. The trial is ongoing.

A United Nations commission, reviewing the change of indictment and other instances of Israel’s use of sexual and gender-based violence, determined that the decision to downgrade the indictments, despite the evidence, “will inevitably result in a more lenient punishment” if there is a conviction.

Why weren’t Israeli politicians calling for accountability?

Because they determined that doing so was somehow unpatriotic.

A number of Israel’s far-right politicians, including Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, were among those who stormed the Sde Teiman prison in protest at the arrest of the soldiers for rape.

Israel’s hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared to address Tomer-Yerushalmi directly in July 2024, writing in Hebrew, “The Military Advocate General, take your hands off the reservists!” he said, referring to the soldiers accused of rape.

Ben-Gvir’s fellow traveller on the far-right, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was equally active on social media at the time, writing that the alleged rapists should be treated like “heroes, not villains”.

Returning to social media during the furore following the rape, Smotrich chose to ignore the credible accusations of rape and instead called for “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.

How have the critics reacted to Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation?

Many of the loudest voices in defending the alleged rapists were equally vocal in welcoming the resignation of the woman responsible for sharing evidence of that rape.

Writing on social media hours after Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation, Smotrich accused her and much of Israel’s judicial system of rank corruption, as well as launching what he called an “anti-Semitic blood libel” against their military.

Ben-Gvir was no less critical of Israel’s judicial system in the leaking of the footage, writing: “All those involved in the affair must be held accountable.”

Both ministers are active supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing attempts to weaken the judiciary and reduce its political oversight.

Have other crimes been committed at Sde Teiman against Palestinians?

At least 135 of the mutilated bodies returned to Palestinian officials in Gaza by Israel last week as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, had been held at Sde Teiman, documents that accompanied each corpse showed.

Several of the bodies had been left with blindfolds on, and some had their hands still tied behind their back. One had a rope around its neck.

The same UN report that examined the reduced indictment against the soldiers also noted that detainees at Sde Teiman – including children – were regularly shackled, forced into stress positions, denied toilets and showers and beaten.

Some were subjected to sexual violence, including the insertion of objects, electric shocks and rape.

Palestinians in Gaza have experienced the deadliest 24 hours since the start of the United States-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect almost three weeks ago.

Israel killed more than 100 people, including 46 children, in attacks late on Tuesday and on Wednesday. Medical sources told Al Jazeera the strikes hit all over Gaza.

This adds to dozens of previous ceasefire violations with a rocky outlook ahead. Let’s take a look at where things stand:

What’s the latest?

The Israeli military said by noon on Wednesday that it was returning to the ceasefire in line with instructions from the political leadership but remained ready to attack again if necessary.

It said it hit more than 30 targets in the besieged enclave, claiming that the targets were “terrorists in command positions within terror organisations”.

But as more residential buildings were flattened by the Israeli bombs, at least 18 members of the same family in central Gaza, including children, parents and grandparents, were among the victims.

Civil Defence teams once again had to use small tools and their hands to dig in the rubble of bombed areas to search for survivors and the dead. Several tents belonging to displaced Palestinian families were also targeted.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 68,643 people have been killed and 170,655 wounded since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023.

What was Israel’s justification?

On Tuesday, Israel announced that the body of a captive transferred from Gaza by Hamas through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did not match one of the 13 to be handed over as part of the ceasefire.

Israeli forensic analysts determined that the remains belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, who was taken to Gaza during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and whose partial remains were recovered in November of the same year.

Israeli officials reacted furiously, especially far-right ministers in the coalition government who are against stopping the war on Gaza and want Hamas “destroyed”. An organisation run by the families of the captives also expressed outrage and demanded action.

A short time later, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said it would hand over the remains of an Israeli captive at 8pm (18:00 GMT), but it held off after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza.

Heavy gunfire and explosions were also heard in the southern city of Rafah. Israel alleged this was an attack by Hamas fighters, something Hamas rejected.

Israel also accused the Palestinian group of “staging” the recovery of a captive’s remains after showing footage purportedly of Hamas fighters burying a body before calling in the ICRC.

The ICRC said its personnel “were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival”.

What’s in the ceasefire?

As part of the agreement, which entered into force on October 10, Hamas handed over all remaining 20 living captives held in Gaza within several days.

The group has also handed over the remains of 15 deceased Israeli captives as part of the deal with 13 others remaining unrecovered or undelivered.

Israel has allowed some humanitarian aid into Gaza, but supplies have been well below the 600 trucks a day specified in the ceasefire, a level that is required to help the famine-stricken population.

Israel has also prevented tents and mobile homes from entering the enclave but has let some heavy machinery enter to search for the remains of its captives.

After all the remains are handed over, a second phase of the ceasefire could potentially enter into force, allowing the deployment of an international stabilisation force and the reconstruction of Gaza.

Israeli officials have repeatedly stressed that they will not allow the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state and have been advancing with a plan to illegally annex the occupied West Bank despite international criticism.

What is Hamas saying?

Hamas has accused Israel of fabricating “false pretexts” to renew aggression in Gaza.

Before the attacks over the past day, Hamas  said Israel had carried out at least 125 violations.

Since October 10, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, at least 211 Palestinians have been killed and 597 wounded in Israeli attacks while 482 bodies have been recovered.

Hamas has also accused Israel of obstructing efforts to recover the bodies of the captives while using the same bodies as an excuse to claim noncompliance.

It pointed out that Israel has prevented enough heavy machinery from entering Gaza to recover the remains and has prevented search teams from accessing key areas.

The Qassam Brigades said its fighters have recovered the bodies of two more deceased captives, Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch, during search operations conducted on Tuesday.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions have said they are prepared to hand over administration of Gaza to a technocratic Palestinian body while maintaining that armed resistance is a result of decades-long occupation and apartheid by Israel.

What does this mean for Gaza’s civilians?

Since the start of the war, civilians have been the main casualties of Israel’s war on Gaza.

They have been disproportionately targeted, as they were in the latest overnight attacks, and have also seen Gaza’s infrastructure and means of living destroyed by bombs and invading Israeli forces.

Because nowhere in Gaza is fully safe, Palestinians underwent another day of panic that the Israeli attacks could be extended.

Israeli warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft continued to hover over the enclave.

What happens now?

The US has repeatedly expressed support for Israel despite its ceasefire violations, emphasising Israel’s right to defend itself.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the ceasefire “is not in jeopardy” despite the strikes.

Mediator Qatar has previously condemned violations of the agreement and accused Israel of undermining its implementation. But along with Egypt, it has worked to ensure the deal stays alive.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied in the Malaysian capital against the visit of US President Donald Trump. They accuse him of complicity in genocide over the Gaza war.

‘They are torn to pieces, I don’t know if I’m saying goodbye to my son or my daughter.’ Palestinians are grieving 11 members of a family killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City, the deadliest single violation of the shaky ceasefire, just days after it came into effect.

A New York jury has found that French banking giant BNP Paribas’s work in Sudan helped to prop up the regime of former ruler Omar al-Bashir, making it liable for atrocities that took place under his rule.

The eight-member jury on Friday sided with three plaintiffs originally from Sudan, awarding a total of $20.75m in damages, after hearing testimony describing horrors committed by Sudanese soldiers and the Popular Defence Forces, the government-linked militia known as the Janjaweed.

The plaintiffs – two men and one woman, all now American citizens – told the federal court in Manhattan that they had been tortured, burned with cigarettes, slashed with a knife, and, in the case of the woman, sexually assaulted.

“I have no relatives left,” Entesar Osman Kasher told the court.

The trial focused on whether BNP Paribas’s financial services were a “natural and adequate cause” of the harm suffered by survivors of ethnic cleansing and mass violence in Sudan.

A spokesperson for BNP Paribas said in a statement to the AFP news agency that the ruling “is clearly wrong and there are very strong grounds to appeal the verdict”.

Bobby DiCello, who represented the plaintiffs, called the verdict “a victory for justice and accountability”.

“The jury recognised that financial institutions cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences of their actions,” DiCello said.

“Our clients lost everything to a campaign of destruction fuelled by US dollars, that BNP Paribas facilitated and that should have been stopped,” he said.

BNP Paribas “has supported the ethnic cleansing and ruined the lives of these three survivors”, DiCello said during closing remarks on Thursday.

The French bank, which did business in Sudan from the late 1990s until 2009, provided letters of credit that allowed Sudan to honour import and export commitments.

The plaintiffs argued that these assurances enabled the regime to keep exporting cotton, oil and other commodities, enabling it to receive billions of dollars from buyers that helped finance its operations.

Defence lawyer Dani James argued, “There’s just no connection between the bank’s conduct and what happened to these three plaintiffs.”

The lawyer for BNP Paribas also said the French bank’s operations in Sudan were legal in Europe and that global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) partnered with the Sudanese government during the same period.

Defence lawyers also claimed that the bank had no knowledge of human rights violations occurring at that time.

The plaintiffs would have “had their injuries without BNP Paribas”, said lawyer Barry Berke.

“Sudan would and did commit human rights crimes without oil or BNP Paribas,” Berke said.

The verdict followed a five-week jury trial conducted by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who last year denied a request by BNP Paribas to get the case thrown out ahead of trial.

Hellerstein wrote in his decision last year that there were facts showing a relationship between BNP Paribas’s banking services and abuses perpetrated by the Sudanese government.

BNP Paribas had in 2014 agreed to plead guilty and pay an $8.97bn penalty to settle US charges it transferred billions of dollars for Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban entities subject to economic sanctions.

The US government recognised the Sudanese conflict as a genocide in 2004. The war claimed some 300,000 lives between 2002 and 2008 and displaced 2.5 million people, according to the United Nations.

Al-Bashir, who led Sudan for three decades, was ousted and detained in April 2019 following months of protests in Sudan.

He is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on genocide charges.

In the months that followed al-Bashir’s ousting in 2019, army generals agreed to share power with civilians, but that ended in October 2021, when the leader of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, seized control in a coup.

In April 2023, fighting broke out between the two sides, and forces on both sides have been accused of committing war crimes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Hungary in the very near future, where he will meet United States counterpart Donald Trump for a second summit on ending the war in Ukraine. The first – in Alaska in August – failed to result in any agreement.

But, with an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in 2023 for Putin’s arrest over the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia’s war with Ukraine, how will the fugitive from justice make it to the negotiating table?

Signatories of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based court in 2002, are required to arrest those subject to warrants as soon as they enter their territory – which theoretically includes airspace, which is also considered sovereign territory under international law.

Hungary, which recently stated its intention to withdraw from the agreement – making it a safe space for Putin – is surrounded by countries which would be bound by this.

However, the ICC, which has 125 member states, has no police force and hence no means of enforcing arrests.

So what awaits Putin on his upcoming jaunt?

Isn’t Hungary technically an ICC member, too?

On paper, yes. But it’s on the way out.

In April, right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced the country would be ditching the ICC’s founding document when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit. Netanyahu is also on the ICC’s most-wanted list for Gaza war crimes – his arrest warrant was issued earlier this year.

The Hungarian parliament approved a bill back in May to trigger the withdrawal process, which becomes official one year after the United Nations Secretary-General receives a written notification of the decision.

Given Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s comments on Friday on the “sovereign” country’s intent to host the president with “respect”, ensuring he has “successful negotiations, and then returns home”, Putin seems safe from any arrest on Hungarian soil.

What about airspace? Could he be intercepted mid-air?

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, “many questions” need to be resolved before Putin sets off on his journey. One of those questions is likely to regard the president’s flight path.

Putin will probably want to avoid the Baltic states after recent violations of Estonia’s airspace by Russian jets, which have put the region on high alert for a potential overspill from the Ukraine war. The Baltics could well force a hard landing.

Friendly Belarus might provide a convenient corridor between the Baltics and Ukraine further south, but this would set the president on course for Poland, which has historically strained relations with the Kremlin and recently warned Europe to prepare for a “deep” Russian strike on its territory. Russian drones have also recently breached Polish airspace.

Slovakia, which is led by Moscow-leaning populist Robert Fico, is still guzzling Russian energy in defiance of Trump’s orders to European countries to stop oil and gas imports, and may be more accommodating. Indeed, Fico is on a collision course with fellow EU members over sanctions against Moscow. But Putin would still need to cross Poland before reaching Slovakia.

Putin’s direct route to Budapest, therefore, appears littered with obstacles.

What about a more circuitous route?

Putin may be inspired by fellow ICC fugitive Netanyahu, wanted for crimes including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinian civilians in war-ravaged Gaza, who avoided several European countries on his way to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Wing of Zion plane briefly flew over Greek and Italian territory, but then ducked south, entirely avoiding French and Spanish airspace before heading over the Atlantic, according to FlightRadar24.

Flying south could be an option for Putin as well. Georgia, whose Georgian Dream governing party suspended Tbilisi’s bid to join the European Union, is a signatory to the Rome Statute but could potentially be relied on to turn a blind eye.

And Turkiye, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, but which has long walked a tightrope between Russia and NATO and hosted previous attempts between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on ending the war, could be amenable to allowing the Russian president to pass.

From there, the main obstacle would be Greece, providing a route through the Balkan states to Orban’s respectful welcome.

Has Putin made other trips since becoming an internationally wanted war criminal?

Putin has clearly limited his travels since the ICC warrant was issued.

Last year, he hopped over the border to ICC member Mongolia, where he was treated to a lavish ceremony featuring soldiers on horseback by Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.

Mongolia has very friendly relations with Russia, on which it depends for fuel and electricity. The country has refrained from condemning Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and has abstained during votes on the conflict at the UN, so it was little surprise to see the red carpet being rolled out.

Flying to Alaska for a bilateral with Trump last August was easy since the president could completely avoid hostile countries, flying over his country’s huge land mass over the Bering Strait to the US, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Similarly, this year’s visit to “old friend” and neighbour Xi Jinping for a huge military parade and a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation posed no problems since China is not a party to the ICC.

This month, the Russian president met Central Asian leaders with whom he is eager to bolster ties in Tajikistan, which has signed up to the Rome Statute.

Will Putin ever be arrested?

The arrest warrants mark the first step towards an eventual trial, although the capture of Russia’s president is almost inconceivable.

Only a few national leaders have ended up in The Hague.

The former Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, surrendered to The Hague earlier this year to face charges of crimes against humanity. The charges pertain to extrajudicial killings committed during his widely condemned “war on drugs”, which killed thousands of people.

The former Liberian president and warlord, Charles Taylor, was convicted in 2012 by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which held proceedings in The Hague. He was found guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Would a future Russian leader decide to forcibly hand Putin over, as was the case with Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, extradited to The Hague after his removal in 2000, for atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia wars?

That would necessitate a seismic shift in the Kremlin’s power dynamic, which seems unlikely for the time being.

Palestinians in Gaza continue to suffer a harsh daily struggle to access food, water, and essential medical supplies one week into the ceasefire agreement as Israel heavily restricts the flow of aid into the war-devastated enclave, contravening the deal.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told Al Jazeera that Palestinians in northern Gaza are in “desperate need” of food and water as thousands have returned to total destruction.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the al-Mawasi area in the south of the Gaza Strip, Ingram said that in order to scale up humanitarian aid deliveries, multiple crossings into the enclave must be opened.

“The stakes are really high,” she said. “There are 28,000 children who were diagnosed with malnutrition in July and August alone, and thousands more since then. So, we need to make sure it’s not just food coming in, but malnutrition treatments, as well.”

While maintaining that humanitarian aid should never become political leverage, Ingram highlighted that assistance to Gaza has been severely constrained for two years, with United Nations agencies sidelined.

“This [ceasefire] is our opportunity to overcome all of that, to turn it right. That is why Israel has to open all of the border crossings now, and they have to let all of the aid into the Gaza Strip at scale alongside commercial goods,” she said.

Israel’s military aid agency COGAT on Thursday announced plans to coordinate with Egypt for reopening the Rafah crossing for civilian movement once preparations conclude. However, COGAT specified that Rafah would remain closed for aid deliveries, saying this wasn’t stipulated in the truce agreement. All humanitarian supplies must instead pass through Israeli security inspections at the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known to Israelis as Kerem Shalom.

With famine conditions already present in parts of Gaza, UN Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher indicated thousands of aid vehicles weekly are required to address the humanitarian crisis.

Despite some aid trucks entering Gaza on Wednesday, medical services remain severely limited and the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents are now homeless. Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run Gaza media office, characterized recent aid deliveries as merely a “drop in the ocean”.

Israeli military operations have devastated much of the densely populated territory, with Gaza health authorities reporting nearly 68,000 Palestinian deaths.

Samer Abdeljaber, the World Food Programme’s regional director, stated the UN agency is utilising “every minute” of the ceasefire to intensify relief operations.

“We are scaling up to serve the needs of over 1.6 million people,” Abdeljaber said in a social media video, noting WFP’s plans to activate nearly 30 bakeries and 145 food distribution points.

“This is the moment to keep access open and make sure the aid keeps flowing,” he said.

After two years in an Israeli jail, Yousef Salem set out on a journey to his house in Gaza. The former detainee, who says he was tortured during his time in captivity, was confronted by the devastation of Israel’s onslaught when he finally arrived home. This is his story.

From deadly antigovernment protests in Madagascar to military parades celebrating the 80th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang, here is a look at the week in photos.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud and Ibrahim al Khalili followed Palestinians making their way back to northern Gaza after a ceasefire deal was announced.

Tens of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians are making their way back to devastated areas in northern Gaza as Israeli forces stop operations as agreed under phase one of the ceasefire plan with Hamas, and partially withdraw.

Gaza’s al-Rashid Street, which has witnessed massive population movements northward and southward over recent months as Palestinians fled Israeli attacks, is once again witnessing a tide of humanity on the move.

Now, with the ceasefire in effect and Israeli forces withdrawn from the Netzarim Corridor that previously divided the road, tens of thousands of Palestinians are journeying north – hoping this time to return permanently.

“Once again [displaced Palestinians] are taking the same exact road, the only lifeline for Palestinians now to go back to their homes in Gaza and the northern part [of the enclave],” reported Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud from the central Gaza coastal highway.

Mahmoud noted that the critical highway has been extensively damaged by Israeli bulldozers, creating a difficult passage for those carrying their belongings.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Al Nuseirat, Gaza, said: “Since this morning, we have seen families walking towards Gaza City. We saw children, women, elderly, cars, vans, donkey carts loaded with furniture. Families removed their makeshift tents to take and reset them over the ruins of their destroyed homes in Gaza City.”

These residents were originally forced to abandon Gaza City due to bombardment, only to find overcrowded conditions in central and southern Gaza upon arrival.

“While this return marks a historic moment, it must be accompanied by substantive measures to address the humanitarian crisis,” Abu Azzoum added.

Most returnees are discovering barely any intact buildings in Gaza City following Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground invasion there. There is now an urgent need for temporary shelters and mobile housing units for these returning families.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 67,211 people and wounded 169,961 since October 2023. A total of 1,139 people were killed in southern Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks and about 200 were taken captive.

After two years of bombardment and displacement, Gaza’s children speak of fear, loss and relief as the ceasefire takes hold. Many of them remain displaced, clinging to hope of returning home and rebuilding their lives.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun returning to their abandoned and mostly destroyed homes, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas takes hold, with Israeli forces withdrawing from parts of Gaza.

Families started moving from western residential areas on Friday back towards Gaza City’s main districts, areas from which they were previously forced to flee.

Several Israeli military brigades and divisions have pulled out from central Gaza regions as well.

At the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, families have begun travelling northward, though many remain waiting to enter areas in the Netzarim Corridor, where Israeli forces were stationed. They are holding there until the final Israeli tank departs the area.

Concerning developments include heightened activity of Israeli drones, fighter jets, and warships since early morning. Multiple attacks were reported in the morning at locations where people were gathering to return home.

A huge procession of displaced Palestinians moved northward through dust-filled roads towards Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, which had experienced intense Israeli military operations just days earlier.

“Thank God my house is still standing,” said Ismail Zayda, 40, in the Sheikh Radwan area in Gaza City. “But the place is destroyed, my neighbours’ houses are destroyed, entire districts have gone.”

The Israeli military announced the ceasefire agreement took effect at noon local time (09:00 GMT). Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire with Hamas early Friday, setting in motion a partial troop withdrawal and complete suspension of hostilities in Gaza within 24 hours.

Israeli captives are scheduled for release within 72 hours afterwards, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

The first phase of United States President Trump’s plan to end the two-year Gaza conflict requires Israeli forces to withdraw from major urban centres, though they will maintain control of approximately half the enclave’s territory.

Once the agreement takes effect, aid trucks carrying food and medical supplies will enter Gaza to assist civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been living in tents after their homes were destroyed and entire cities reduced to rubble.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reflects on the two years since Israel’s war on Gaza began, sharing a personal story of displacement, loss, and suffering.

The International Criminal Court has found Sudanese militia chief Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman guilty of war crimes committed during Sudan’s Darfur conflict more than two decades ago. He was accused of playing a crucial role in the atrocities that killed hundreds of thousands of people.