A ban preventing UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, from operating in Occupied East Jerusalem and Israel has come into force today.

The highly controversial move came into force after the Israeli Parliament voted in favour three months ago, and after a legal challenge to pause the ban was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Israel accuses UNRWA of having close links to Hamas in Gaza, which the organisation denies.

Nine UNRWA employees were sacked for taking part in the 7 October attacks.

Many donor countries initially suspended funding but most, including the UK, have since reinstated it.

“UNRWA equals Hamas,” an Israeli government spokesman said yesterday. “Israel has made public irrefutable evidence UNRWA is riddled with Hamas operatives.”

No evidence has been presented of those links existing in Jerusalem or the West Bank.

In the Shuafat refugee camp close to Jerusalem, Palestinian patients told us they were angry and concerned by the loss of vital services.

“I’m against this decision, we’re all against it, the whole camp,” said Amal. “Everyone has benefited from this clinic. Both West Bank and Jerusalem residents.

“I’ve been coming here ever since I was a little girl, we’ve gotten used to coming here. This really doesn’t work for us.”

Another patient, Mohammed, was carrying boxes of prescription medicine, paid for by UNRWA because he couldn’t afford them himself.

“I have a chronic disease and I rely on a monthly prescription,” he told us. “My children get treated here; their children get vaccinated.

“And all of this is for free. I could not afford this medicine otherwise.”

Although the ban only concerns operations in Occupied East Jerusalem, Israel has also severed communication with the Agency and revoked the visas of international staff, making it extremely hard to continue services in Gaza and the West Bank.

Almost all of the two million residents of Gaza rely on UNRWA in some form. UNRWA has contacts on the ground that no other agency has or could replicate in the current crisis.

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Following the vote to ban UNRWA, the Head of the World Food Programme Cindy McCain described the agency as “indispensable” and tweeted that “the decision will have devastating consequences on food security.”

UNRWA, which was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, provides medical services to at least 70,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem and runs schools for thousands of pupils as well as maintaining streets and carrying out waste disposal.

Israel says those pupils will now be transferred to municipality schools but UNRWA says there has been little to no coordination around who will replace other services.

“We have not been given any indications of plans or indeed proposals by the Israeli authorities, not in East Jerusalem, also not in the West Bank,” UNRWA’s director of West Bank operations Roland Friedrich told Sky News.

He added: “It is very concerning because it doesn’t allow us to basically coordinate, prepare and in fact, to try to see how things can be done going forward.

“The collapse of UNRWA in the West Bank and in fact also in the Gaza Strip cannot be in the interest of anybody, not of Israelis, not of Palestinians, not of neighbouring countries, and clearly also not for those who care about the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”

On the doorstep of Goma – the site of the UN’s biggest peacekeeping mission in the world – there are signs of surrendered soldiers and fierce battles.

As we walked on the road in front of the United Nations’ main base, we stepped around fatigues, rounds and helmets once belonging to the Congolese army fighting the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.

The rebels now control the strategic city of Goma after fighting for the border post with Rwanda. It sits south of the swathes of mineral-rich mining territory the rebels have been seizing through last year.

We see them packed on the back of trucks still marked by the FARDC logo of the Congolese army.

I ask one man watching from the side of the road what he makes of this extreme shift.

“This is bad!” he says to me discreetly on the side of the road, with our car as cover from the prying eyes of the junior M23 soldiers.

“My family is not good. I am not good – we don’t know what comes next.”

Small groups are meeting the rebels with cheers and clapping.

We cannot tell if it is relief from the Congolese state or a necessary precaution for many who do not want to leave their hometown on the cusp of a new administration.

But before they can settle in and set up a local authority, M23 have time to stop and humiliate their former enemy.

Not just the Congolese troops, but the Romanian mercenaries fighting alongside them.

MONUSCO, the United Nations’s peacekeeping group in the DRC, brokered an evacuation convoy for the paid fighters to go to Rwanda with trucks full of Uruguayan peacekeeping troops watching as M23 led the handover through their newly-captured border.

As the Romanian men pass through in a single file, they are chastised by M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma who taps them mockingly one by one.

“Come on soldier!” he said. “You were fighting for money – we were fighting for our life!”

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I corner him as he flags the buses through – could you have come this far without Rwanda’s support?

He tries to keep busy, and after the fourth time I repeat the question, he yells into my face in French:

“We are a Congolese army, we are Congolese! We fight for a fair and noble cause – we are Congolese. We are not helped by Rwanda!”

It will take more than a feverish denial to undermine the widely known support of Rwanda for M23 – one that has been condemned at the highest levels of the United Nations and senior diplomats from around the world.

As the “Welcome to Rwanda” sign gets closer, the last Romanian mercenary limps across with a wounded leg flanked by a UN security advisor and an Indian medic.

A surreal sight of a man heading home after fighting a war in a foreign country surrounded by Congolese families fleeing the war at home.

At least 30 people have died and 60 have been injured in a stampede at a Hindu festival in northern India.

Images from the scene in the city of Prayagraj, in Uttar Pradesh state, show bodies being stretchered away and rescuers helping those who were hurt.

All 60 people injured have been taken to hospital, according to local police.

Millions of people were attempting to take a holy bath in the river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival when there was an initial stampede at 1am local time (7.30pm UK time) on Wednesday.

Authorities said people trying to escape it were then caught in a second – and more serious – stampede at an exit.

Devotees had congregated to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

Authorities took more than 16 hours to release precise numbers of those injured and killed.

A Rapid Action Force unit, a special team deployed during crisis situations, was sent to the scene.

The state’s most senior official, Yogi Adityanath, made a televised statement later on Wednesday, urging those still planning to bathe in the Ganges to do it elsewhere on the riverbank.

“The situation is now under control, but there is a massive crowd of pilgrims,” he said.

Around 30 million people had taken the holy bath by 8am local time on Wednesday, he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he has spoken to Mr Adityanath, calling for “immediate support measures”, according to the ANI news agency.

Authorities had expected a record 100 million people to visit Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh – “festival of the Sacred Pitcher” – on Wednesday for the holy dip.

It is regarded as a significant day for Hindus, due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.

The Maha Kumbh festival, which is held every 12 years, started on 13 January, lasts six weeks, and is the world’s largest religious gathering.

Organisers had forecast that more than 400 million people would attend the pilgrimage site over the course of the festival.

Authorities have built a sprawling tent city on the riverbanks, equipped with 3,000 kitchens, 150,000 toilets and 11 hospitals.

Stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds can gather in small areas.