UN News Today 10 October 2024 |

Lebanon crisis: Health workers and facilities ‘targeted or hit’

In Lebanon, health workers and medical facilities have continued to be hit and killed by ongoing Israeli bombardment, a week since Israel sent troops and armoured vehicles into the south of the country and issued evacuation orders, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.

The UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported that ambulances and relief centres had been “targeted or hit” while the UN health agency WHO and health partners have continued to deliver life-saving surgical supplies to frontline health workers.

International humanitarian law provides special protection for ambulances, healthcare workers and their patients and must not be a target, OCHA said, as Lebanese officials announced that an Israeli airstrike killed five healthworkers in the south of the country.

According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), 92 people in Lebanon have been killed and 92 injured in 38 attacks on healthcare in the last year, since Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel intensified with the outbreak of war in Gaza.

On Thursday morning, the UN peacekeeping mission patrolling the border between Lebanon and Israel reported that an Israel Defense Forces tank fired towards an observation tower at its headquarters in Naqoura in the southwest of the country, injuring two peacekeepers.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, also said that Israeli soldiers fired on a UN position in Labbouneh in the south, hitting the entrance to a bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering.

North Gaza aid missions impeded or denied, reports UN health agency

To Gaza, where UN humanitarians have expressed deep alarm at the ongoing and catastrophic humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, where they say aid missions have been delayed or denied by the Israeli authorities.

The north of the enclave has seen increased Israeli military operations in recent days, while Jabalia refugee camp remains surrounded and new evacuation orders have been issued to some 400,000 people.

Only two water wells in Jabalia refugee camp remain functional, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, while the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the north continues to face severe shortages of bread and food supplies.

Explosive munitions have “burned down the only bakery supported by WFP in Jabalya refugee camp”, WFP said.

According to the UN health agency WHO, hospitals in the north are “overwhelmed and risk going out of service”, while humanitarians said that Israeli military checkpoints inside Gaza only allow civilians to move south, with “just a trickle” of humanitarian movement possible into the north.

More than 370 million girls and women globally raped or sexually assaulted: UNICEF

More than 370 million girls and women alive today – one in eight – have experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Thursday.

Releasing the first global and regional estimates on sexual violence against children, UNICEF highlighted the true scale of the violations, especially for adolescent girls, who often suffer “deep and lasting trauma”.

The UN agency said that if data for online or verbal abuse were included in the headline figure, the number of girls and women affected would reach 650 million globally – or one in five.

To tackle all forms of violence and abuse, UNICEF underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive prevention and support strategies to effectively address all forms of violence and abuse.

It said that sexual violence against children remains “pervasive” across geographical, cultural and economic boundaries.

Data indicates that Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of victims, with 79 million girls and women affected. This is followed by 75 million in Eastern and South-East Asia, 73 million in Central and Southern Asia, 68 million in Europe and North America, 45 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 29 million in North Africa and Western Asia, and six million in Oceania.

Matt Wells, UN News.

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