(UN News)* — UN health agency WHO hailed on Tuesday [] the “heroic efforts” of staff at Gaza City’s besieged Al-Shifa hospital and expressed concern for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the enclave where heavy rainfall has caused flooding and aggravated the already dire health crisis.
“Rain will just add further to the suffering” of people in the Strip, WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva, at a time when disruptions in sewage pumping and water shortages have caused a spike in waterborne diseases and bacterial infections.
7 Nov 2023 – What happened October 7 and after as UN Chief Guterres said “did not happen in a vacuum”. Palestinians endured ethnic cleansing and racist onslaught daily for 75 years (that is over 27325 days).
That left 8 million Palestinians refugees or displaced people and the rest stored in disconnected concentration camps (Gaza, Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah etc).
Mazin Qumsiyeh
There is deepening crime of apartheid and racial discrimination in the West Bank while genocide goes on in Gaza. Israel’s ongoing horrors are a mockery of international law.
Today the situation in Gaza is catastrophic as it shifts to a higher stage of carnage: from sudden death and injury of civilians by bombing them without warning to ADD death by thirst, starvation, lack of hygiene, and collapse of health care services (Israeli policies of mass murder by denial of basics of life).
More patients, including premature babies, have reportedly died in Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital which has gone three days without electricity amid intensifying Israeli military operations, making a ceasefire more urgent than ever, UN humanitarians have said.
The UN’s health agency WHO said on Sunday [13 November 2023] night that according to the Gaza health authorities, 37 premature babies at the hospital were relocated over the weekend to an operating room without their incubators, with health workers trying to heat the room.
Geneva, 8 November (World Meteorological Organization (WMO)* — The ongoing El Niño event is expected to last at least until April 2024, influencing weather patterns and contributing to a further spike in temperatures both on land and in the ocean, according to a new Update from the World Meteorological Organization.
10 November 2023 (World Meteorological Organization (WMO)* — Government leaders and scientists have sounded the alarm at the accelerating scale and speed of melting snow, ice and glaciers and the looming threat for human, environmental and economic well-being and security.
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The One Planet – Polar Summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron called for urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, for more in-depth scientific research on the cryosphere and better integration of the effects of the retreat of the cryosphere into policy-making.
(UN News)*, 7 November 2023 — In just a matter of weeks, some 5,500 women are due to give birth in Gaza, where doctors in overstretched hospitals are delivering babies with little or no anaesthesia – sometimes by the light of mobile phones.
As the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants enters a second month, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and sister agencies continue to appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire and an increase in convoys bringing food, fuel, water and other desperately needed aid into the enclave.
NAIROBI, Nov 10 2023 (IPS)* – Somalia, Syria, DRC Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are the 10 countries at greatest risk of climate disaster globally despite collectively contributing just 0.28 percent of global CO2 emissions.
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Kenya’s extensive coastline has been fronted as a hub for carbon trading due to its lush mangrove forests. But now experts caution that carbon markets are exploitative greenwashing systems. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
(UN News)* — The war between rival militaries in Sudan is growing in scope and brutality, having driven almost six million people from their homes since it erupted in April and worsening an already complex humanitarian emergency, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) warned on Tuesday [].
“The war that erupted without warning turned previously peaceful Sudanese homes into cemeteries,” said Dominique Hyde, Director of External Relations at UNHCR.
She visited the country last week, and witnessed a surge in human suffering.
“Away from the eyes of the world and the news headlines, the conflict in Sudan continues to rage. Across the country, an unimaginable humanitarian crisis is unfolding, as more and more people are displaced by the relentless fighting,” Ms. Hyde added.
9 November 2023 —It’s 2.30 am and doctors are huddling outside the entrance to Jenin hospital, supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), in the West Bank, Palestine.
GAZA, Palestine, 9 November 2023 – “The working conditions in our hospital are catastrophic. We lack basic life necessities and we’re struggling with a severe shortage of water,” said Yasmine Ahmed, a midwife at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility.
After a month of escalating hostilities, the health-care system in Gaza is hanging by a thread: Fuel, medicine and supplies have all but run out and with hospitals, infrastructure and ambulances coming under fire, even transporting the injured is fraught with danger.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 