Israel-Gaza-Lebanon live updates: American hostage's father makes plea to Biden and Trump

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on Sunday announced a pause to Gaza aid deliveries via the strip's main crossing point, citing serious threats to the safety of staff.

The road out of the Kerem Shalom crossing "has not been safe for months," Lazzarini said in a post to X.

"This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening," Lazzarini said. "The delivery of humanitarian aid must never be dangerous or turn into an ordeal."

The UNRWA chief said a "large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs" on Nov. 16, with several more aid trucks taken on Saturday.

Lazzarini also said that Israel's "ongoing siege" of Gaza, "hurdles" put in place by Israeli authorities and "⁠political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid" were among the other problems facing U.N. staff.

"The humanitarian operation has become unnecessarily impossible," he wrote. "The responsibility of protection of aid workers [and] supplies is with the state of Israel as the occupying power."

-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he spoke with the family of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, a video of whom was released by Hamas on Saturday.

"The brutal video that was released is part of psychological warfare, but it is an important and moving sign of life for us and for his family," Katz wrote on X.

"The hostages and their families are going through terrible suffering," he added. Israeli authorities "are working tirelessly to return all the kidnapped people home," Katz wrote.

Alexander, who grew up in New Jersey, was a serving Israeli soldier positioned on the Gaza frontier during Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack.

Save the Children has announced that one of their staff members was killed Saturday in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza.

Ahmad Faisal Isleem Al-Qadi, 39, worked for the non-profit's administrative team in Gaza since May 2024, Save the Children said in a statement.

"Ahmad, who was deaf, will be remembered for his determination to help others, for his pride in his daughter, and for his ability to brighten others’ days. He had shared his dream with colleagues of rebuilding his home that was destroyed in a previous airstrike," the organization said in the statement.

This is the second Save the Children member killed in Gaza since the conflict began.

"There are not strong enough words to express the grief and outrage we feel at the loss of Ahmad in an Israeli airstrike. He was a valued member of our team and loved by all who met him," Inger Ashing, Save the Children International's chief executive, said in the statement.

"We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms and demand an investigation," he added.

The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately comment about Al-Qadi's death.

-ABC News' Victoria Beaulé

The White House has been in touch with Edan Alexander’s family and called the release of the video featuring a message from him a "cruel reminder of Hamas’s terror against citizens of multiple countries, including our own," White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement Saturday

"The war in Gaza would stop tomorrow and the suffering of Gazans would end immediately — and would have ended months ago — if Hamas agreed to release the hostages," he said.

"It has refused to do so, but as the President said last week, we have a critical opportunity to conclude the deal to release the hostages, stop the war, and surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza. This deal is on the table now," he added.

-ABC News' Justin Gomez