In Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that access to North Gaza Governorate is still extremely limited. It is worried about the fate of Palestinians remaining there, as the siege continues, and calls on Israel to open up the area to humanitarian operations at the scale needed.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in Gaza City, along with UN partners, mental health and psychosocial support services are being provided to tens of thousands of people and solid waste that has piled up along Tareq bin Zeyad Street is being picked up.
The just released UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report says that nations must dramatically increase climate adaptation efforts and urgently close the $187-359 billion per year gap that exists between adaptation finance needs and current international public adaptation finance flows.
In its annual report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said today that opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2024 increased by an estimated 19 per cent year-on-year to cover 12,800 hectares. UNODC said that the increase follows on a 95 per cent decrease in cultivation during the 2023 crop season.
In Lebanon, the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Public Health opened a new Trauma and Burn Management Unit at the Turkish Trauma and Emergency Hospital in Sidon and a humanitarian convoy successfully delivered one month of medical supplies, medicine and hygiene kits to the Primary Healthcare Centre in Labweh.
In West and Central Africa, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the region continues to experience catastrophic flooding, with more than 7 million people impacted across 16 countries. Chad, Niger, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been the most affected.
The UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee, which brings together leaders of 15 UN humanitarian agencies and large international humanitarian non-governmental organizations, issued a joint statement describing the situation in North Gaza as apocalyptic, with reports of civilians being targeted while seeking safety.
Following Hurricane Oscar that hit Cuba, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has released $3.5 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to address urgent needs for shelter, health, food and water and a $33 million Action Plan will launched tomorrow.
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) today reported that between July and September, over 1,200 people were killed there and more than 500 injured by gang violence, as well as in the fight against gangs. During the same period, the mission also documented 170 kidnappings for ransom.
The UN Secretary-General has issued a statement of deep concern over the Israeli Knesset’s adoption Monday of two laws, which if implemented, would likely prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from continuing its essential work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.