Jerusalem, 27 July

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump on Friday at the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years as the two sought to mend their political alliance.

Netanyahu's visit to Florida came a day after the Israeli leader met in Washington with US Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris has urged Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas soon so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since 7 October could return home.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 39,100 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The United Nations estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

UN agency pushes back against Israel's calls to dismantle it

The UN agency helping Palestinian refugees told the Security Council on Friday that the world body must “push against” Israel's calls to dismantle the agency and raised alarms about proposed Israeli legislation that would designate the aid agency a terrorist group.

“We cannot afford this to become a new standard for future humanitarian operations in conflict zones across the world,” said Antonia De Meo, the deputy commissioner of the agency, known as UNRWA. She said the legislation, if passed, would threaten staff and the “entire UN system around the world”.

Israel's parliament, the Knesset, is weighing measures that would brand UNRWA a “terror group” and cut diplomatic ties between Israel and the agency.

UNRWA operates schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programmes in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. In Gaza, it has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians during the Israel-Hamas war.

Some 199 UNRWA staffers have been killed in the war, the vast majority with their families, and 560 displaced people have been killed “while sheltering under the UN flag”, De Meo said. She said 190 of the agency's buildings have been hit, and many schools that were used as shelters were demolished.

Israel has long railed against UNRWA, accusing it of tolerating or even collaborating with Hamas and of perpetuating the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said for years that the agency should be dismantled.