The Kerem Shalom crossing is expected to open today for security checks on the aid being brought into Gaza, Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, said yesterday.

"The simultaneous security checks at Kerem Shalom and Nitzana crossings will DOUBLE the volume of aid delivered through the Rafah Crossing and admitted into the Gaza Strip," it said in a post on X.

Only a few dozen trucks are entering Gaza every day and doubling that aid will still be a fraction of what used to reach Gaza before Hamas' Oct. 7. attacks.

A bipartisan group of almost three dozen senators is urging the United Nations to open an independent investigation into what it called a “growing body of evidence” that Hamas engaged in sexual violence during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In a letter first shared with NBC News, 33 senators pressed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to establish “an independent fact-finding effort” that would collect survivors’ and witnesses’ testimonies.

“An independent investigation is a necessary step to hold perpetrators accountable, support survivors, and provide justice for victims,” according to the senators, led by Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.; Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md.

Israeli officials have accused Hamas of using rape and sexual violence as weapons of war during the October attack, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel. Since then, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 18,000, according to health officials there.

Read the full story here.

The United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote today on a resolution demanding a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, days after the United States unilaterally vetoed a Security Council draft resolution on the same drawing widespread condemnation.

The General Assembly is set to meet today at 3 p.m. ET.

The General Assembly, whose resolutions are nonbinding, had adopted a resolution in October which called for "humanitarian truce."

A nurse writes identifying information on the body of Sidal Abu Jami at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip today. Jami, a Palestinian girl from Khan Younis, who was sleeping in a tent died overnight after being struck in the head by a shrapnel fragment following Israeli bombardment on a nearby position.

Israeli forces arrested at least 30 people from the occupied West Bank between Sunday evening and yesterday morning, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club said in a statement yesterday.

"The occupation forces continue to carry out widespread acts of abuse, severe beatings, field investigations, and threats against detainees and their families," it added.

This brings the tally to more than 3,760 people who have been arrested since Hamas Oct. 7 attacks, it said.

The Israel Defense Forces said today it found approximately 250 rockets, shells and rocket launchers during a raid on a Hamas compound as it continues its military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

"IDF troops in Jabalya identified a post launching rockets toward the city of Sderot," it said in a statement, adding IDF forces responded with an aerial attack on the launch post.

"Israeli naval forces identified a terrorist cell that was firing at the ground troops in the Gaza Strip and struck the cell," it said.

NBC News could not independently verify the report.

NBC News spoke with displaced Palestinians who were forced to evacuate to Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated “safe zone” along the Mediterranean in southern Gaza. United Nations officials warned that conditions in Gaza are deteriorating rapidly as Israel continues its military offensive.

About 1.9 million people have been displaced in Gaza, officials have said. Aid and health organizations have warned of a health care system that is collapsing. Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN World Food Programme, has said that “only a fraction of the food needed is getting in,” and has called the situation in Gaza “a nightmare.”

MADRID/LONDON — Zara pulled an advertising campaign featuring mannequins with missing limbs and statues wrapped in white from the front page of its website and app yesterday after it prompted calls by some pro-Palestine activists for a boycott of the fashion retailer.

Inditex, which owns Zara, said the change was part of its normal procedure of refreshing content. It did not comment on the boycott calls, but said the “Atelier” collection was conceived in July and the photos were taken in September. The war between Israel and Hamas began after Oct. 7. In a statement, Zara reiterated the timeline and said the images had been removed after customers "saw something far from what was intended when they were created."

Zara’s Instagram account saw tens of thousands of comments posted about the photos, many with Palestinian flags, while “#BoycottZara” was trending on the messaging platform X.

The World Health Organization has again called for the protection of health care and humanitarian work in Gaza, in a statement issued today.

The statement came after a patient died following “military checkpoint delays and detention of health partners during a mission to transfer critically ill-patients and deliver supplies to a hospital in northern Gaza.”

Incidents, including obstructing ambulances, as well as attacks on health care workers, are deemed as “unconscionable,” the report said.