Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Somalia

Men in blue vests stand in what appears to be the inside of a hospital. A man in a white jacket looks on.

Jamie McGoldrick (left, blue vest and glasses), Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim for Palestine being briefed by Dr Ahmed Dahir (right, blue vest), WHO Gaza Team Lead, at the Kamal Adwan Hospital. They were accompanied by other UN staff including Georgios Petropoulos, OCHA’s Head of Gaza Office (centre, blue vest). The hospital in northern Gaza that provides treatment for malnourished children is one of four that remain partially functional in the area. 21 March 2024. UNICEF

Occupied Palestinian Territory

OCHA staff helped evacuate civilians on Monday from Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, amid intense military operations there.

OCHA – together with the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross – evacuated six patients and a companion, more than two dozen staff, and the bodies of two people killed inside the hospital. As of yesterday, Al Amal Hospital had ceased functioning.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), two-thirds of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are non-functional. Two are minimally functional, and 10 are partially functional – four in the north and six in the south.

OCHA’s Head of Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Andrea De Domenico, visited one of the four partially functional hospitals in northern Gaza called Kamal Adwan last week. He said the hospital is receiving about 15 malnourished children a day and is struggling to maintain services. The hospital’s only generator has been heavily damaged, and health workers and patients desperately need food, water and sanitation assistance.

De Domenico said we and our partners are doing our best to support Kamal Adwan and other hospitals, but he stressed that saving children’s lives will require the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), roughly 70 per cent of the population in northern Gaza is facing catastrophic hunger. However, efforts to deliver life-saving assistance to the north have been impeded by access constraints and the ongoing fighting. This month, WFP was only able to send four* convoys to the north – bringing food for some 74,000 people. Given the colossal needs, daily deliveries will be needed to halt famine.

(*Number was corrected on 28 March 2024. It was initially reported as 11 convoys).

Syria

The Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, deplored in a statement yesterday the killing of a humanitarian staff in Deir-ez-Zor City, in the north-east of the country, because of hostilities.

On Tuesday, 26 March, a WHO colleague was killed when his building was among those hit by multiple airstrikes across Deir-ez-Zor Governorate. Several other civilians were also reportedly killed in the attacks, according to local sources.

Mr. Abdelmoula said that this attack is a reminder of the daily continued danger and devastation civilians are facing in Syria as the crisis has now entered its fourteenth year.

He called all parties to the conflict to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects in their military operations in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Somalia

OCHA is worried about the spread of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in the country. As of a week ago, nearly 4,400 cases and 54 deaths had been recorded in nearly half of all districts in Somalia since the start of the year. More than 60 per cent of the deaths were among children under the age of five.

WHO says the number of reported cases in Somalia in 2024 is three times higher than the previous three-year average. Somalia is already among the countries most severely impacted by cholera and acute watery diarrhea. This outbreak is expected to spread further – including to areas where the disease has not been seen in years -- during the coming rainy season, which is expected to be heavier than normal.

The UN and humanitarian partners are working with Somalia’s health authorities to step up preparation and response efforts, in line with a six-month plan of action that will require nearly US$6 million.

There is a severe shortage in the number of available oral cholera vaccine doses – 1.4 million doses have been allocated to Somalia by the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision and are due to arrive in Somalia shortly.

Meanwhile, aid organizations are pre-positioning cholera treatment kits and working on surveillance and case management. They are also delivering clean water, testing water quality, and providing water treatment supplies and hygiene kits, as well as training and deploying health workers.

However, we urgently need additional funding. This year’s humanitarian appeal for Somalia is less than 10 per cent funded, with just over $150 million received of the nearly $1.6 billion required.