The UN General Assembly voted Friday to grant new rights and privileges to Palestine and called on the Security Council to favorably reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

The vote also recognizes Palestine's right to become the 194th member of the body.

The 193-member world body approved the Arab and Palestinian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-9 with 25 abstentions.

The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent.

The resolution to expand Palestine’s rights at the UN has passed with overwhelming support: 143 countries voted in favour, nine voted against and 25 abstained.

We will bring you a full breakdown of how each country voted shortly.

One hundred and forty-three countries voting in favour of Palestine to get more rights at the United Nations: That is significant.

What we were hearing before the vote was anywhere perhaps between 120, 130 – at the top end, 140 – the fact that they got 143 meets and exceeds all expectations.

It’s overwhelmingly passed.

‘World stands with the Palestinian people’: Abbas welcomes UN vote

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says Palestine will continue to push for full membership at the UN after today’s General Assembly vote.

He said the resolution’s passage showed that the world stands with the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people, and against Israel’s occupation.

Gaza death toll rises

At least 34,943 Palestinians have been killed and 78,572 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, its Health Ministry says.

The ministry added that 39 people were killed and 58 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

UN sounds alarm over aid as Israel pushes assault into Rafah

The United Nations warned on Friday that aid for the Gaza Strip could grind to a halt in days, as Israeli troops took their ground war with Palestinian fighters into the crowded city of Rafah, a key aid corridor for the famine-threatened strip

Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing the eastern and western sections of Rafah, effectively encircling the eastern part of the city in an assault that has caused Washington to block some military aid to its ally.

Residents described almost constant explosions and gunfire east and northeast of the city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip on Friday, with intense fighting between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Hamas said it ambushed Israeli tanks near a mosque in the east of the city, a sign the Israelis had penetrated several kilometres from the east to the outskirts of the built-up area.

Israel has ordered civilians out of the eastern part of Rafah, forcing tens of thousands of people to seek shelter outside the city, previously the last refuge of more than a million who fled other parts of the enclave during the war.

Israel says it cannot win the war without assaulting Rafah to root out thousands of Hamas fighters it believes are sheltering there. Hamas says it will fight to defend it.

Supplies were already running short and aid operations could halt within days as fuel and food stocks get used up, United Nations aid agencies said.

"For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel," said the UNICEF Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Gaza Strip, Hamish Young.

Aid agencies say the battle has put hundreds of thousands of already displaced civilians in harm's way.

"It is not safe, all of Rafah isn't safe as tank shells landed everywhere since yesterday," Abu Hassan, 50, a resident of Tel al-Sultan west of Rafah told Reuters via a chat app.

"I am trying to leave but I can't afford 2,000 shekels ($540) to buy a tent for my family," he said. "There is an increased movement of people out of Rafah even from the western areas, though they were not designated as red zones by the occupation."

Israeli tanks have already sealed off eastern Rafah from the south, capturing and shutting the only crossing between the enclave and Egypt. An advance on Friday to the Salahuddin road that bisects the Gaza Strip completed the encirclement of the "red zone" where they have ordered residents out.

"Over the course of the last three days or so the situation has really deteriorated incredibly dramatically in Rafah," said James Smith, a British emergency room doctor volunteering in Rafah.

"The number of airstrikes has increased. The number of artillery strikes has increased, and we've heard that heavy military equipment, tanks and so on, have been on the streets of eastern Rafah and also been to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt," he said in a voice message forwarded to Reuters by a colleague.

Bridget Rochios, an American midwife volunteering at Rafah's main maternity hospital, said in a text message that it was still managing to treat some pregnant women with medical emergencies, but others had to be sent elsewhere to give birth at facilities less well-equipped. Around half of staff had stopped coming in because of Israeli evacuation orders.

The Israeli military said its forces in eastern Rafah had located several tunnel shafts, and troops backed by an air strike fought at close quarters with groups of Hamas fighters, killing several. It said Israeli jets had hit several sites from which rockets and mortars had been fired towards Israel in recent days, including at the Kerem Shalmon crossing point.