Middle East

The initiative from veteran aid chief Martin Griffiths, head of the UN aid coordination office OCHA, comes more than five weeks since Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took around 240 hostages. The full-scale Israeli siege and assault that followed has levelled thousands of buildings in Gaza and…

The UN’s health agency WHO said on Sunday night that according to the Gaza health authorities, 37 premature babies at the hospital were relocated over the weekend to an operating room without their incubators, with health workers trying to heat the room. According to the latest media reports on Monday,…

The situation is unfolding as “lives are hanging by a thread”, including those of babies in incubators at hospitals that depend on fuel for electricity, Andrea De Domenico, Head of OCHA’s office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told journalists in New York on Monday. “Humanitarian ceasefire, fuel supplies – all…

The regional directors of the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), children’s agency UNICEF and health agency WHO, said they were “horrified” at latest reports which indicate many have been killed – including children – in facilities across Gaza city and other northern areas of the Strip. The Palestinian…

Philippe Lazzarini was addressing an emergency summit convened by the League of Arab States and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation where he called for urgent support for civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on three fronts. He called on leaders at the Arab-Islamic summit to “act now to change the trajectory”…

6:00 PM That’s it from this latest UN Security Council meeting on the Israel-Palestine crisis, where consensus among the body’s 15 members remains elusive. Here are the main highlights from today’s humanitarian briefings: HIGHLIGHTS Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO), called for a ceasefire to save…

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in just one of month of conflict, they said, citing local health authorities. Children, women and the elderly account for 75 per cent of the victims, and upwards of 26,000 people have been injured. “Furthermore, according to multiple sources, the number of Palestinian…

“Water is scarce and fear is pervasive” in Gaza, Mr. Türk told journalists in Amman, recounting a conversation he had minutes earlier with a colleague in Gaza who had to flee Israeli bombardments with his family. “His children, aged nine and seven, are asking him questions he does not know…