Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu says world court cannot stop Israel in Gaza as war enters 100th day | Middle East and north Africa

The clock is “ticking fast towards famine” in Gaza, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has said, as Israel’s war on the territory entered its 100th day on Sunday.

Without directly blaming Israel or Hamas for what he said was a “man-made disaster”, Philippe Lazzarini, the boss of UNRWA, said in a statement late Saturday the crisis had been “compounded by dehumanizing language and the use of food, water and fuel as instruments of war.”

Israel shut off water supplies and blocked most food, fuel and medical aid to the territory after the deadly Hamas attack of 7 October.

At the same time it launched an unprecedented bombing and ground assault which has so far killed around 24,000 Palestinians and wounded tens of thousands more, the majority women and children. Thousands more Palestinians are believed to be buried under the rubble of bombed buildings.

“The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss, and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity,” Lazzarini said. People were now living in “inhumane conditions” he said and diseases were spreading as Gazans “live through the unlivable”. He continued:

The plight of children in Gaza is especially heartbreaking. An entire generation of children is traumatized and will take years to heal. Thousands have been killed, maimed, and orphaned. Hundreds of thousands are deprived of education. Their future is in jeopardy, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.

Israel will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the world court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in a defiant speech Saturday, as the fighting in Gaza approached the 100-day mark.

Netanyahu spoke after the International Court of Justice at The Hague held two days of hearings on South Africa’s allegations that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, a charge Israel has rejected as libelous and hypocritical, the Associated Press reported.

South Africa asked the court to order Israel to halt its blistering air and ground offensive in an interim step.

“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks Saturday evening, referring to Iran and its allied militias.

The case before the world court is expected to go on for years, but a ruling on interim steps could come within weeks. Court rulings are binding but difficult to enforce. Netanyahu made clear that Israel would ignore orders to halt the fighting, potentially deepening its isolation.

Israel has been under growing international pressure to end the war, which has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led to widespread suffering in the besieged enclave, but has so far been shielded by US diplomatic and military support.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Middle East crisis with me, Helen Livingstone.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that “no one will stop” Israel in its war against Hamas, including the international court of justice in The Hague, where South Africa this week launched a case against Israel accusing it of genocide.

“It is possible and necessary to continue until victory and we will do it,” Netanyahu said at a televised press conference, saying most Hamas battalions in Gaza had been “eliminated”.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, meanwhile warned that the clock is “ticking fast towards famine” in the Gaza strip, to where Israel has blocked water supplies and the delivery of most food, fuel and medical aid amid its brutal assault.

“The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss, and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity,” the UNRWA boss said in a statement late Saturday, the eve of the 100th day of Israel’s war on Gaza.

More on that soon. In other developments:

• Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Washington DC on Saturday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed nearly 24,000 Palestinians since 7 October. Pictures posted online showed demonstrators holding various signs including some saying “Stop funding apartheid now” and “Free Palestine”. Guest speakers who condemned Israel’s attacks on Gaza and urged for a ceasefire in Gaza included Cornel West, Imam Omar Suleiman and Wael al-Dahdouh (who spoke via a video feed).

• Palestinian journalist Wael al-Dahdouh, who works for Al Jazeera and whose family members were killed by two separate Israeli strikes while he also was recently wounded by another Israeli strike himself, addressed the protest in Washington DC via a video feed from Gaza. He spoke up about the dire conditions in which Palestinians are struggling to exist in Gaza while under Israeli bombardment. “The people are paying an exorbitant price, and are living a disastrous life,” he told the crowds in Washington DC.

• A Hamas official thanked Qatar on Saturday for sending medicine to Gaza “in light of the many risks that threaten the lives of Palestinians”, Reuters reports. Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, the Lebanon-based Hamas leader Osama Hamdan said: “Some medicine will be used to treat Israeli prisoners.”

• The first lady of Namibia, Monica Geingos, has spoken out against Germany’s defense of Israel in South Africa’s case against Israeli genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. In a statement on X, Geingos cited the Herero-Nama genocide, which was waged by German forces from 1904 to 1908 and killed between 24,000 and 100,000 Hereros and 10,000 Nama in Namibia (then known colonially as German South West Africa). Geingos said: “The absurdity of Germany, on 12 January 2024, rejecting genocide charges against Israel and warning about the ‘political instrumentalisation of the charge’ is not lost on us.”

• The Committee to Protect Journalists has renewed its calls for the protection of journalists in Gaza and urged for “the killings of journalists by the Israeli army” to stop. CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said: “After 100 days of fighting, Israel’s longstanding record of impunity in journalist killings must face public scrutiny by allowing international media and international investigators uncensored access to Gaza. The killings of journalists by the Israeli army must stop now.”