Our planet has logged higher mean temperatures each year, with 2023 set to be the hottest on record. Ice sheets are melting at an unprecedented rate. Wildfires have made the air hazardous in some regions, while in others, floods regularly threaten to contaminate drinking water. Against this backdrop, more and...
As the fourth day of this year’s UN climate conference got under way, the UN chief stated: “The fossil fuel industry is finally starting to wake up, but the promises made clearly fall short of what is required.” Reacting to the pledge announced on Saturday by several major oil and...
“As we drove through Gaza City it was like a ghost town; all the streets were deserted,” said Thomas White, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza. “The impact of heavy airstrikes and shelling was so visible. Roads are riddled with craters, complicating aid deliveries.” Truce deadline looms Wednesday marks the...
“About 160 children are killed every day; that’s one every 10 minutes,” said UN World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, echoing concerns from the UN Children’s Fund about the serious additional threat of a mass disease outbreak in the enclave. “If youngsters continue to have restricted access to water...
In Protecting maternal, newborn and child health from the impacts of climate change, the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) jointly underscore the neglect, underreporting, and underestimation of climate events’ effects on maternal and child health. It also draws attention to the importance...
More than 1.5 million Gazans are displaced, 18 hospitals have shut down, and hundreds of thousands are living in fear and under continuing Israeli bombardment. “Casualties continue to mount, with the dead reportedly exceeding 11,000 people – the majority of them children and women,” said Emergency Relief Coordinator and Humanitarian...
The double burden of dwindling availability – and inadequate water for drinking and sanitation services – is compounding the challenge, putting children at even greater risk. The Climate Changed Child – released ahead of the COP28 UN climate change summit later this month in Dubai – throws a spotlight on the...
3:26 PM Palestine Red Crescent Society: ‘Health sector is under attack’ Marwan Jilani, Director General of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, provided an overview of recent events, noting that he had to rewrite his statement several times as the situation is “changing by the minute”. People are getting shot at...
“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...
Echoing his remarks with French President Emmanuel Macron looking on, the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, stressed the “heart-breaking” plight of children in the territory, whom he saw last week “pleading for a piece of bread and a sip of water”. Mass displacement has...
“Every day, you think it is the worst day and then the next day is worse,” UN health agency spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said, quoting a colleague in Gaza, which remains under almost complete blockade. “Access, access, access is necessary.” 160 children killed daily The level of death and suffering is...
With the deepening Israel-Palestine crisis about to enter its second month, a dozen UN agencies have reiterated urgent appeals for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to allow more lifesaving aid into Gaza....