Speakers urged the Security Council today to prevent northern Gaza’s descent into famine amid relentless death and destruction, as the 15-member body convened an emergency meeting in response to experts’ warnings that immediate action is required within “days, not weeks” to avert the scourge.
The United Nations refugee agency today released a report warning that people forced to flee war, violence and persecution are increasingly finding themselves on the front line of the global climate crisis, exposing them to a lethal combination of threats but without the funding and support needed to adapt.
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.
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 thirtieth United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East this afternoon resumed and concluded its activities, holding a session on the topic of Behind the Headlines of Gaza: Media Challenges and Perspectives.
Journalists, media experts, policymakers and scholars gathered for the opening of the thirtieth annual International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East today, held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
