内容摘要：THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court on Friday wraps a week of hearings on what Israel must do to ensure desperately needed humanitarian aid reaches Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court on Friday wraps a week of hearings on what Israel must do to ensure desperately needed humanitarian aid reaches Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

— one of the strongest condemnations by a high-ranking U.N. official during the war in Gaza.Tom Fletcher, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, briefed the Security Council, describing this work as a “grim undertaking” since

from entering Gaza more than 10 weeks ago.He went as far as saying that the council must “act now” to “prevent genocide,” a claim that Israel vehemently denied.“I ask you to reflect — for a moment — on what action we will tell future generations we each took to stop the 21st century atrocity to which we bear daily witness in Gaza,” said Fletcher, a longtime British diplomat who took up the U.N. post in November. “It is a question we will hear, sometimes incredulous, sometimes furious — but always there — for the rest of our lives.”

In response to Fletcher’s remarks, the Israeli mission to the U.N. said that “Israel will not accept a humanitarian mechanism that props up the Hamas terror organization that butchered our people in their homes and communities.” Before the blockade, the U.N. and other international aid agencies handled moving aid into the enclave.The U.N. World Food Program’s director for Gaza, Antoine Renard, told The Associated Press that a quarter of Gaza’s population is at risk of famine. That’s despite all the food needed to feed the territory’s population sitting in warehouses in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan — and most of it is not even 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, he said.

Renard said WFP warehouses in Gaza are empty, and the agency has gone from providing meals for 1 million people at the end of April to producing only 250,000 meals daily. The meals they can serve are “meaningless, compared to people’s requirements,” he said.

“Soon, we’re going to speak about the fact that people don’t even have access to a meal,” Renard warned. “Is that where we need to go to actually raise the alarm? It’s now that we need to act.”Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the International Fund for Animal Welfare officers monitor an elephant’s movement using a drone in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Zimbabwe’s collaring project may offer a way forward. Sixteen elephants, mostly matriarchs, have been fitted with GPS collars, allowing rangers to track entire herds by following their leaders. But Hwange holds about 45,000 elephants, and parks officials say it has capacity for 15,000. Project officials acknowledge a huge gap remains.In a recent collaring mission, a team of ecologists, vets, trackers and rangers identified a herd. A marksman darted the matriarch from a distance. After some tracking using a drone and a truck, team members fitted the collar, whose battery lasts between two and four years. Some collected blood samples. Rangers with rifles kept watch.

Once the collar was secured, an antidote was administered, and the matriarch staggered off into the wild, flapping its ears.“Every second counts,” said Kudzai Mapurisa, a parks agency veterinarian.