Violent clashes between non-state armed groups and government forces have displaced more than 450,000 people in the last six weeks in Rutshuru and Masisi territories in North Kivu province.
People arriving in the town of Sake, located near the provincial capital Goma, spoke of having to make harrowing choices, with men risking death to feed starving children and women risking rape to collect firewood.
‘Concerning pattern of abuse’
UNHCRsaid its monitoring in the region has showed over 3,000 reported human rights violations in October, nearly double the figure from the previous month.
“Rape and arbitrary killings feature prominently in these results, along with kidnappings, extortion, and the destruction of property, illustrating a deeply concerning pattern of abuse inflicted upon civilian populations,” the agency said.
The intensification of violence is also having a devastating impact on the lives of children, with protection partners reporting a sharp increase in the number of overall violations against them.
Major roads obstructed
The UN agencies said the severity of the crisis is further exacerbated by the limited humanitarian access to those in dire need, mainly due to the obstruction of major routes, with some 200,000 displaced people cut off from aid.
The disruption also increases the vulnerability of displaced populations, leaving them without essential resources and protection.
Although UNHCR has built shelters in recent months for more than 40,000 people near Goma, and distributed more than 30,000 kits containing tarps, cooking pots, and blankets, the partners more action is needed to ensure that the nearly seven million people affected by conflict receive urgent help.
Humanitarian funding shortfall
UN partners and humanitarian groups are urgently ramping up efforts to tackle urgent needs stemming from overcrowding and inadequate shelter in spontaneous sites, with limited access to food and clean water.
Since June 2023, UNICEF has reached nearly 700,000 people with lifesaving assistance, including clean water and sanitation, child protection, non-food items, health, nutrition and education.
Together with UNHCR, the agency urgently appealed for an end to the violence and underlined their commitment to alleviate the suffering of those affected by the crisis.
However, they stressed that the international community must act swiftly and generously, noting that a $2.3 billion humanitarian response plan for the DRC this year is only 37 per cent funded.
Trucks with relief supplies continued to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Friday after the entry into force of a four-day pause in fighting, UN humanitarians said.
Co-founding the groundbreaking magazine Ms. in 1972, Ms. Steinem and her colleagues brought feminist issues to the forefront.
“For the first time, there are fewer females on Earth than males because of all the forms of violence,” Ms. Steinem said at UN Headquarters in 2016 to draw attention to violence against women.
Gloria Steinem: The link between women’s rights and peace
Ahead of UN Women’s 16 Days campaign against gender-based violence, take a front row seat for a look at some of Ms. Steinem’s work here, part of the UN News #ThrowbackThursday series showcasing epic moments across the UN’s past. From the infamous and nearly-forgotten to world leaders and global superstars, stay tuned for a taste of the UN Audiovisual Library’s 49,400 hours of video recordings and 18,000 hours of audio chronicling.
Visit UN Video’s Stories from the UN Archive playlist here and our Podcast Classics series here. Join us next Thursday for another dive into history.
According to media reports, ongoing negotiations over the Israel-Hamas agreement on a four-day humanitarian pause and the freeing of hostages held by the Palestinian armed group since its 7 October terror attacks indicated that the deal’s entry into force was believed to be unlikely before Friday.
Amid rising hunger, UN World Food Programme (WFP) chief Cindy McCain said that the agency was “rapidly mobilizing to scale up assistance inside Gaza” once safe access is granted. Her comments followed UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths’ statement on the Organisation’s readiness to increase the volume of aid brought into the enclave and distributed across the Strip.
Ms. McCain said that WFP trucks are “waiting at the Rafah crossing, loaded with food slated for families in shelters and homes across Gaza, and wheat flour for bakeries to resume operations”.
Latest UN humanitarian reports indicated that wheat flour is no longer available in markets in the north of Gaza and that no bakeries are functioning owing to a lack of fuel, water, flour and structural damage.
Hopes for a lifeline
Since limited aid deliveries through the Rafah crossing with Egypt resumed on 21 October, just over 73 truckloads of WFP food aid have made it into Gaza, falling far short of needs.
Ms. McCain expressed hope that more fuel will be let into the enclave “so that our trucks can carry in much-needed supplies and that once again bread will be available as a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of people every day”.
Some 75,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt on Wednesday following an Israeli decision last week to allow the “daily entry of small amounts of fuel for essential humanitarian operations”, according to UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA.
The fuel is being distributed by the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, to support food distribution and the operation of generators at hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, shelters, and other critical services in the south of the Strip, as access to the north has been cut off by Israeli military operations.
OCHA head and UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said last week that some 200,000 litres of fuel per day were needed.
Hospital evacuation update
A new evacuation of 190 wounded and sick people, their companions and medical workers from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City was completed on Wednesday.
The development was announced by UN health agency WHO as a joint effort between UN agencies and humanitarian partners led by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
The evacuees were transported in an ambulance convoy to the south.
OCHA quoted PRCS reports stating that the evacuation “lasted for almost 20 hours as the convoy was obstructed and subjected to inspection while passing through the checkpoint that separates northern and southern Gaza” and deploring the fact that the lives of patients had been endangered.
Evacuated dialysis patients were transferred to Abu Youssef An Najjar Hospital in Rafah, Gaza, while other patients were transported to the Strip’s European hospital in Khan Younis. An estimated 250 patients and staff are believed to be at Al-Shifa, which is no longer operational, OCHA said.
Meanwhile, Wednesday saw the lowest number yet of displaced people leaving northern Gaza to cross to the south using the “corridor” opened by the Israeli Defense Forces along the Strip’s main traffic artery, Salah Ad Deen Road.
According to OCHA monitoring only some 250 people moved south. The UN Office said that the decline is “largely attributed to the expectations generated by the humanitarian pause” which is yet to be implemented.
To date, over 1.7 million people in Gaza are internally displaced.
“This is an important step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done,” Mr. Guterres said via a statement from his spokesperson Farhan Haq.
The top UN official leading efforts to secure a lasting peace in the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, echoed those comments and also welcomed the announced 96-hour “humanitarian pause” in war-shattered Gaza.
“This pause must be used to its fullest extent to facilitate the release of hostages and alleviate the dire needs of Palestinians in Gaza.”
The development comes as UN humanitarians reiterated that they remain ready to seize the opportunity to ramp up lifesaving aid to the enclave.
‘Ocean of need’
Following the four-day ceasefire announcement the UN World Health Organization (WHO) issued fresh calls for safe, unimpeded humanitarian access in the Strip.
“The fighting needs to stop so that we can quickly scale up our response,” said Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “We cannot keep providing drops of aid in Gaza in an ocean of need.”
Meanwhile, WHO said that a new evacuation was under way at Gaza City’s embattled Al-Shifa hospital, with more to follow in northern Gaza.
‘Senseless conflict’
According to media reports, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was due to begin within 24 hours of its announcement. In his statement, Mr. Wennesland welcomed the efforts of the Governments of Egypt, Qatar and the United States in “facilitating” the agreement.
WHO’s representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, said that any news of a humanitarian pause and of a release of hostages was welcome, but that a true end to the fighting was needed.
At the same WHO press conference in Cairo, Dr. Al-Mandhari called for a “permanent ceasefire” and said that the parties to the conflict should “put the welfare and health of their people as their first priority”.
The UN health agency official also led a minute of silence to honour WHO staffer Dima Alhaj, killed in Gaza on Tuesday, along with many relatives. “As we grieve, we are reminded of the senseless nature of this conflict and of the fact that in Gaza today nowhere is safe for civilians, including our own UN colleagues,” he said.
Since the start of Israel’s retaliation of Hamas’ 7 October massacres which left 1,200 dead in southern Israel and some 240 hostages abducted, 108 UN staff members have been killed in the Strip.
New hospital evacuations under way
Dr. Peeperkorn revealed on Wednesday that a mission was under way in close coordination with humanitarian partners the Palestinian Red Crescent and Médecins Sans Frontières, to evacuate patients and health workers remaining in Al-Shifa.
The mission follows the initial inter-agency evacuation of 31 premature babies on Sunday. Out of the 220 patients and 200 health workers still at the hospital, the priority evacuees would be 21 dialysis patients, 29 patients with spinal injuries and those in intensive care, Dr. Peeperkorn said.
He also informed that in the meantime, the UN health agency has received evacuation requests from three other hospitals in northern Gaza: Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Al-Awda Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, and planning was under way, with WHO and its partners sparing no efforts to “make sure this happens in the coming days”.
He explained that such evacuations are only undertaken upon request and as a last resort.
Attacks on healthcare
Dr. Al-Mandhari deplored the fact that even hospitals are not being protected from the “horrors” of the conflict in Gaza. WHO has documented 178 attacks on healthcare in the Strip since 7 October and out of the enclave’s 36 hospitals 28 are not functional anymore, his colleague Dr. Peeperkorn told journalists.
The eight remaining hospitals, all in the south, are “overwhelmed”, he said, and all efforts must be made to keep them functional and expand their bed capacity.
The enclave had some 3,500 hospital beds prior to the current escalation and that number is now down to less than 1,400.
WHO
People seek refuge in the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza. (file)
Much more aid required
The perspective of a ceasefire has raised hopes for improved access to desperate Gazan civilians and an increase in the volume of relief items coming through.
According to UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA, the aid trucks which have been entering Gaza since 21 October represent barely 14 per cent of the monthly volume of humanitarian and commercial transport reaching the enclave before the start of the current hostilities; this excludes fuel, which had been completely banned by the Israeli authorities until just a few days ago.
OCHA said that on Tuesday, 63,800 litres of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt, following an Israeli decision from 18 November to “allow the daily entry of small amounts of fuel for essential humanitarian operations”.
The incoming fuel is being distributed by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, to support food distribution and the operation of generators at hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, shelters and other critical services.
No food in the north
News of the ceasefire agreement came amid fears of hunger spreading in the north, which has been sealed off from the south by Israeli military operations. Humanitarian agencies have been unable to deliver assistance there since 7 November. Due to the lack of cooking facilities and fuel, “people are resorting to consuming the few raw vegetables or unripe fruits that remain available to them”, OCHA said, while no bakeries are open.
OCHA also warned that livestock in the north “is facing starvation and the risk of death” due to the shortage of fodder and water, and crops are being “increasingly abandoned”.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said 10 days ago that it considered the entire civilian population in Gaza to be food insecure.
Mental health needs ‘skyrocketing’
The distress caused by constant bombing, displacement and massive overcrowding in the UNRWA shelters, in some of which 400 people have to share a toilet, has been taking a heavy psychological toll on Gazans. OCHA said that mental health care needs are “skyrocketing”, especially for the most vulnerable: children, persons with disabilities and those with pre-existing complex conditions.
“Only limited psychosocial support services and psychological first aid is being provided in some shelters across Gaza where protection actors are sheltering and have capacity to respond”, OCHA said. Many services have reportedly been destroyed and many staff are unable to work.
OCHA also highlighted an increase in the movement of unaccompanied children and separated families. The UN Office said that an interagency plan is being developed to respond to this situation, including the registration of cases.
The country, known colloquially as North Korea, claimed to have carried out a third attempt to launch a ballistic missile on Tuesday, according to media reports.
Comply with obligations
Any such launch is contrary to relevant Security Council resolutions, Mr. Guterres said in a statement issued later that day by his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
The Secretary-General reiterated his call on the DPRK “to fully comply with its international obligations under all relevant Security Council resolutions and to return to dialogue without preconditions to achieve the goal of sustainable peace and the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Cameroon receives WHO-approved malaria vaccine
The arrival in Cameroon of the world’s first malaria vaccine recommended by UN health agency WHO has been hailed as a significant step toward broader vaccination against one of the deadliest diseases for African children.
More than 330,000 doses of the RTS,S vaccine landed in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, on Tuesday night, as announced by WHO; Gavi, the vaccine alliance, and the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
Nearly every minute, a child under five dies of malaria, which is spread by infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. There were 247 million cases globally in 2021, and nearly 620,000 deaths, mostly among under-fives in Africa.
“This is another breakthrough moment for malaria vaccines and malaria control, and a ray of light in a dark time for so many vulnerable children in the world,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who called for vaccines to be scaled up.
The RTS,S vaccine has been administered to more than two million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi through a pilot programme that started in 2019.
The delivery to Cameroon is the first to a country not previously involved in the pilot programme, signalling that the scale-up of malaria vaccination across the highest-risk areas in Africa will begin shortly.
UN General Assembly President expresses solidarity with Haiti
The President of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, concluded a two-day official visit to Haiti on Tuesday, where he expressed support and solidarity for its people as the country faces multiple challenges.
The security situation in the Caribbean country has deteriorated due to rampant gang violence. Last month, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of an international mission to support the national police.
Kenya has offered to lead the non-UN force.
Mr. Francis and his delegation were received in the capital, Port-au-Prince by Prime Minister Ariel Henry and other senior officials.
During his meeting with the Prime Minister, he emphasized that the international community had not forgotten about the country and its citizens.
The Assembly President also met with representatives of political parties, civil society and UN officials, in addition to visiting a primary school.
In reply to a question at a press conference dealing with the latest emissions report, Secretary-General António Guterres said that in all the reports issued during his tenure, on children in conflict, it was clear that the current war in Gaza has seen thousands of child deaths – compared with hundreds, in conflicts in Yemen and Syria.
Without entering into discussing the accuracy of the figures released by the health ministry in Gaza, which are regarded by UN agencies as reliable, he said that “what is clear is that we have had in a few weeks thousands of children killed.”
Latest reports from health authorities indicate that more than 13,000 civilians in total have died in the enclave since the 7 October terror attacks by Hamas, and subsequent Israeli offensive.
“This is what matters. We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I have been Secretary-General.”
Opportunity out of tragedy
Also addressing how the region can move forward once the fighting stops, the UN chief said that it was “important to be able to transform this tragedy into an opportunity.”
“For that to be possible, it is essential that after the war we move in a determined, irreversible way to a two-State solution“, he told correspondents.
“It means also that after the war – and this is my opinion – I believe it to be important after the war to have a strengthened Palestinian authority to assume responsibilities in Gaza.”
‘Unliveable’
Meanwhile, in Gaza a tweet by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA on Monday, described the situation in shelters as “unliveable”. It said that Gazans had “no options”, echoing repeated warnings from UN humanitarians nowhere is safe for civilians in Gaza.
Since Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel on 7 October that claimed around 1,200 lives with nearly 240 hostages captured, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have fled south, following an evacuation directive from the Israeli military.
Astonishing exodus
Satellite images of the exodus showed a mass of people moving across a landscape of shattered buildings, while photographs taken at ground level showed families carrying their belonging on foot and a woman dragging two babies in car seats behind her.
In an update on Sunday, Tom White, Director of UNRWA Affairs, told US network ABC that 13 UNRWA sites where people had been “sheltering under the UN flag” had been “directly hit” since 7 October, while “countless other shelters” had suffered “collateral damage” – many of them in the south of Gaza, where civilians had been told to flee.
Dozens killed in shelters
Mr. White said that 73 people had been killed in UNRWA shelters to date, “a large proportion of them in the south”.
“The reality is the Gazans have got nowhere to go for safety and they are all exposed to the threat of fighting and particularly airstrikes,” the UNRWA official said.
According to the UN agency, more than 880,000 internally displaced have sought shelter in 154 UNRWA installations across all five of Gaza’s governorates. Out of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, 1.7 million are now displaced.
To date, 104 UNRWA staff have been killed along with at least 11,000 people in Gaza according to health authorities.
“Houses have been hit all across the Gaza Strip,” said UNWRA’s Mr. White, who said that people’s main concern was, “If they’re in the north or in the south, are they safe?”
“At no time since the CRC was adopted 34 years ago have children’s rights been in greater jeopardy,” she said.
Children in the crosshairs
Although the 1989 treaty acknowledges that all boys and girls have inalienable rights which governments promised would be protected and upheld, “unfortunately, children today are living in a world that is increasingly hostile to their rights,” she said.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the experience of children impacted by conflicts. UNICEF estimates that some 400 million – roughly one in five – are living in or fleeing conflict zones.
“Many are being injured, killed, or sexually violated. They are losing family members and friends. And some are being recruited and used by armed forces or groups,” said Ms. Russell.
She added that many have been displaced multiple times, risking separation from their families, losing critical years of education, and fraying ties to their communities.
One billion face climate risk
Furthermore, it was “deeply troubling” that this coincides with other threats to children’s rights including rising poverty and inequality, public health emergencies, and the climate crisis.
Globally, more than one billion children currently live in countries that are at ‘extremely high-risk’ from the impacts of climate change, according to UNICEF.
“This means half the world’s children could suffer irreparable harm as our planet continues to warm,” said Ms. Russell.
“They could lose their homes or schools to increasingly violent storms … they could suffer from severe wasting because local crops have dried up from drought … or they could lose their lives to heat waves or pneumonia brought on by air pollution.”
UNOCHA
Children in Maroua, Domayo, in the Far North of Cameroon, a region impacted by the conflict in the Lake Chad region coupled with climate change.
‘Children need peace, now’
Ms. Russell called for stronger advocacy towards the fulfillment and protection of children’s rights, including through supporting the alignment of national legal frameworks with the CRC and ensuring accountability for violations wherever they occur.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it plainly in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “Children need peace, now,” he wrote.
‘A day for mourning’
Also sounding the alarm is the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which “calls for ceasefires and a return to basics of humanitarian law to safeguard all children.”
World Children’s Day has become “a day for mourning for the many boys and girls who have recently died in armed conflict,” members said in a statement.
“More than 4,600 children have been killed in Gaza in only five weeks. This war has claimed the lives of more children in a shorter time and with a level of brutality that we have not witnessed in recent decades,” they said.
War on children
Although a UN Security Council resolution adopted last week, which calls for humanitarian pauses and corridors, is a positive step, they said “it does not end the war that is waging on children – it simply makes it possible for children to be saved from being killed on some days, but not on other days.”
The Committee also voiced concern over the thousands of children dying in armed conflicts in many other countries, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Haiti, Sudan, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia.
“Verified figures show that in 2022, the global figure of children killed or maimed was 8,630,” they said. “Of deep concern is the fact that up to 4,000 children were denied humanitarian access last year. Given the current situation in Gaza, the number of child victims of these grave human rights violations is rising exponentially.”
‘Crisis point’ for girls
The rights experts also highlighted the situation of girls affected by armed conflict which “is also at a crisis point”, with verified reports of the abduction and rape of girls in Sudan and Haiti.
Additionally, they expressed concern over children of “so-called ‘foreign fighters’”, such as those currently in camps in northeast Syria who should be repatriated.
While some States have acted to return children and their mothers, they said an estimated 31,000 children are still living in abysmal conditions in the camps.
They also drew attention to the plight of boys who are being separated from their mothers when they reach early adolescence, as well as several hundred boys who are in prison.
Addressing an open debate of the Security Council on the link, António Guterres said that while development alone cannot guarantee peace, it is an essential component.
“No peace is secure without inclusive and sustainable development that leaves no one behind,” he said, drawing parallels to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Just as progress towards one goal lifts all others, failure in one area risks reversing gains across the board. And no failure is more calamitous than the failure to prevent conflict,” he stressed.
Worrying pattern
Mr. Guterres observed a global pattern where countries closer to conflict tend to be further from achieving any measure of sustainable and inclusive development.
Nine out of the ten nations with the lowest Human Development Indicators have experienced conflicts or violence in the past decade, he said, identifying inequalities, lack of opportunities, corruption, climate chaos, and environmental degradation.
“Organized crime, violent extremist and terrorist groups find fertile ground in such environments – fraying the social fabric and further aggravating insecurities and corroding effective governance,” he said.
Mutually reinforcing
The UN chief stressed the mutually reinforcing relationship between development and conflict prevention, emphasizing that human development promotes hope, prevention, security, and peace.
He called for simultaneous efforts to advance peace and sustainable, inclusive development.
To achieve this, Mr. Guterres outlined key steps, including ensuring food security, education, skill development, healthcare, social protection, and dignity for all.
SDGs off track
As 85 per cent of SDGs targets are off track, Mr. Guterres called for urgency and ambition.
Developing countries, especially the Least Developed Countries, face multiple crises, including crushing debt, climate catastrophes, widening inequalities, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I have been advocating for bold steps to make our global institutions – including the international financial architecture – more representative of today’s realities, and more responsive to the needs of developing economies,” he said, adding:
“I have also proposed a set of concrete actions we can take now – including an SDG Stimulus of $500 billion a year to reduce debt burdens and release resources for long-term, affordable financing from multilateral and private sources.”
Collective action
He emphasized the need for collective action, recalling the New Agenda for Peace, which he proposed in July.
“We must recognize that – as an international community – we are only as strong as our weakest link,” he said.
Looking ahead, he urged Member States to approach the Summit of the Future in a spirit of solidarity and ambition.
“To secure peace and advance development, we must jettison the self-defeating logic of zero-sum competition, recommit to cooperation, and nurture the courage to compromise.”
The open debate
The open debate was organized by China, which holds the Council presidency for November.
An open debate is a meeting that allows for the participation of non-Council Member States, regional organizations and others as appropriate, providing a platform for a broader range of voices to address specific issues on the agenda.
Top UN officials echoed that call to improve conditions for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, 1.7 million of which have been displaced since the 7 October Hamas attack in Israel resulted in the killing of 1,200 Israelis and capture of 240 hostages. Since then, more than 11,000 people have been killed in besieged Gaza.
“This war is having a staggering and unacceptable number of civilian casualties, including women and children, every day,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Sunday. “This must stop. I reiterate my call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in a statement on Sunday that: “The horrendous events of the past 48 hours in Gaza beggar belief.”
Growing despair
“The killing of so many people at schools turned shelters, hundreds fleeing for their lives from Al-Shifa Hospital amid continuing displacement of hundreds of thousands in southern Gaza are actions which fly in the face of the basic protections civilians must be afforded under international law,” Mr. Türk said, stressing that failing to adhere to these rules may constitute war crimes.
According to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which issued its latest situation report on Sunday, nearly 884,000 internally displaced persons are sheltering in 154 UNRWA installations across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip.
“Just getting into one of the shelters makes you burst into tears,” an UNRWA employee said. “Children looking for food and water and standing in queues for over six hours just to get a piece of bread or a bottle of water. People are literally sleeping on streets here in Khan Younis as thousands keep escaping from the north.”
Attacks on schools, shelters
In less than 24 hours, two UNRWA schools sheltering displaced families were hit, causing “many deaths” and injuries, mostly of women and children, in addition to other deadly incidents across Gaza and the West Bank against the backdrop of soaring humanitarian needs, UNRWA said.
Mr. Türk said at least three other schools hosting displaced Palestinians have also been attacked.
“This must stop,” he said. “Humanity must come first. A ceasefire – on humanitarian and human rights grounds – is desperately needed. Now.”
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads UNRWA, said in a statement on Sunday that the attacks are “just cruel”.
“I watched with sheer horror reports from an attack on the Al-Fakhoura UNRWA school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza,” he said.
Classrooms sheltering displaced families were hit and at least 24 people were reported killed in the strike. Up to 7,000 people were in the school at the time, the UNRWA chief said. On Friday, following strikes on the UNRWA Al-Falah/Zeitoun school in Gaza City, ambulances could not reach the school, where 4,000 people were sheltering.
Beyond ‘collateral damage’
Since 7 October, at least 176 people sheltering in the agency’s schools were reported killed and 800 wounded during Israeli bombardments, Mr. Lazzarini said.
“The large number of UNRWA facilities hit and the number of civilians killed cannot just be ‘collateral damage’,” he said, adding that the UN agency routinely shares the buildings’ coordinates with parties to the conflict.
“This vicious war is reaching a point of no return when all rules are disrespected, in overt disregard for civilian lives,” he said, calling and appealing “once again for humanity to prevail and for a humanitarian ceasefire right now.”
WHO
Palestinian civil defence responders search the rubble of a building in the aftermath of an air strike in the Gaza Strip. (file)
Al-Shifa Hospital
Israeli military operations have been continuing inside and around Al-Shifa Hospital, with UN colleagues that visited the site on Saturday describing it as a “death zone”.
On Sunday, WHO and humanitarian partners helped to evacuate infants in critical condition.
Medical personnel, patients and civilians had fled the hospital over the weekend, ordered to do so by the Israeli military, UNRWA’s chief said, adding that hundreds were seen making their way south on foot, at great risk to their lives, health and safety.
WHO reported on Sunday that six Palestine Red Crescent ambulances transported the babies to Al-Helal Al-Emirati Maternity Hospital, where there are receiving urgent care.
“Further missions are being planned to urgently transport remaining patients and health staff out of Al-Shifa Hospital,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post on Sunday.
WHO
A joint humanitarian team, led by WHO, accessed Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza to assess the situation on the ground.
Southern Gaza
In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Israeli Defense Forces are dropping leaflets demanding residents go to unspecified “recognized shelters”, even as strikes take place across Gaza, according to OHCHR.
“Already displaced Palestinians, deprived by extreme restrictions on lifesaving assistance, are struggling to meet their basic needs, forced into ever-diminishing, overcrowded, unsanitary unsafe spaces,” Mr. Türk said.
“Irrespective of warnings, Israel is obliged to protect civilians wherever they are,” the UN human rights chief said. “The pain, dread and fear etched on the faces of children, women and men is too much to bear. How much more violence, bloodshed and misery will it take before people come to their senses? How many more civilians will be killed?”
UNRWA schools are sheltering more than 800,000 displaced people in Gaza during the Israel-Palestine crisis.
Critical needs
Meanwhile, needs are rising, UN agencies said.
The entry of fuel critical for the overall humanitarian operations across the enclave has been largely banned since 7 October when the war began. Limited fuel deliveries began on Wednesday, and UNRWA has been informed that, as of Saturday, 120,000 litres of fuel will be delivered every two days going forward.
UN agencies have said this is not enough for all humanitarian activities, and that at least 200,000 litres per day are required to, among other things, power generators to provide electricity to hospitals and to operate water facilities. Both services have been cut since the start of the conflict.
Fuel is also critical for telecommunications networks, UNRWA said, noting that Gaza’s fourth communications blackout on Friday meant the agency was unable to transport trucks of humanitarian assistance arriving via Egypt.
Rising death toll
As of 10 November, over 11,078 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October; two thirds of them are reportedly children and women, the UNRWA report said. Due to the collapse in the Gaza’s Ministry of Health services and communications in the north, casualty data has not been updated for the last five days.
Media reports indicate the number of Palestinian deaths is nearly 12,000.
Israel reported that around 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel, the vast majority on 7 October, according to the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA).
On Saturday, one UNRWA colleague was killed in the northern area due to strikes. In total, 104 colleagues have been killed since the beginning of the war, the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in the Organization’s history, according to UN Palestine refugee agency.
West Bank
Violent incidents, deaths and injuries struck several areas of the West Bank, including the Fara’a and Jenin refugee camps, according to UNRWA’s situation report.
OCHA reported that since 7 October, 198 Palestinians, including 52 children, have been killed by Israeli security forces and eight, including one child, by Israeli settlers.
In the Balata refugee camp in Nablus on Saturday, Israeli security forces launched an operation, entering with an armoured bulldozer and mobilizing a drone that fired missiles towards the Fatah office, killing five, injuring two others and damaging homes and shops, according to UNRWA.
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This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
