WHO said in a news release that more than 591,000 children under 10 years old will receive the vaccine to protect them from the highly infectious disease, beginning this weekend for an anticipated period of five days. The campaign follows the recent detection of poliovirus in wastewater samples in the...
OCHA cited Gaza’s Ministry of Health which stressed that oxygen supplies are critically needed to keep emergency, surgical and intensive care services running at hospitals, including Al Shifa and Al Rantisi hospitals in Gaza City. “Health partners are engaging with the authorities to bring in generators, spare parts and equipment...
The UN is racing against time to expand humanitarian relief and prepare for the monumental task of rebuilding Gaza, as a fragile ceasefire holds but tensions loom over a potential resumption of fighting. “There is no time to lose,” said the head of the office responsible for UN reconstruction efforts...
A note to media correspondents was released by the UN on Sunday, a day after the release of three Israeli hostages from Gaza, in exchange for 369 Palestinians held in Israel’s jails. The exchange forms part of the first phase of a ceasefire deal between the two sides which came...
Amid reports that a return to full-scale war at the weekend may have been averted with the announcement by Hamas that it would comply with the agreed release of Israeli hostages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that aid teams were “seizing every opportunity” to...
The ‘blue helmet’ was part of a long-range MINUSCA patrol to protect civilians, that was near the village of Zobassinda, in Bamingui-Bangoran prefecture, which came under attack on Tuesday night by an unidentified armed assailant. António Guterres expressed his deepest condolences to the families of the fallen peacekeeper, and to the Government...
“We must avoid at all costs the resumption of hostilities in Gaza that would lead to an immense tragedy,” said the UN chief, in a statement relayed to journalists by UN Geneva spokesperson Rolando Gomez. “I appeal to Hamas to proceed with the planned liberation of hostages next Saturday. Both...
“The health system is ruined. Malnutrition is rising. The risk of famine persists,” said Dr Hanan Balkhy, the UN World Health Organization (WHO)’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “We are ready to scale up our response – but we urgently need systematic and sustained access to the population across...
Announcing the development, the UN’s top aid official, Tom Fletcher, said that the trucks contained lifesaving food, medicine, and tents – all desperately needed by Gazans after more than 15 months of constant Israeli bombardment. The UN emergency relief chief’s comments came as he prepared to join an aid convoy...
The temporary agreement to stop the fighting and release hostages brought an end to some 15 months of conflict and destruction in the Strip, following the brutal Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel of 7 October 2023. The truce came into force on 19 January and OCHA said the surge in...
UNRWA’s communications director Juliette Touma described catastrophic scenes at the camp, where some 100 buildings had been “destroyed or heavily damaged” by the detonations at the weekend. The camp’s residents had “endured the impossible”, she said, after nearly two months of “unceasing and escalating violence” linked to the Israeli military...
It comes a day after Israeli Security Forces (ISF) carried out a series of controlled detonations at the Jenin refugee camp, located in the northern West Bank, destroying large areas there “in a split second”. UNRWA said it received no prior warning of the explosions “as contact between staff and...