Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ukraine
Occupied Palestinian Territory
A team was sent to assess the situation at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Training Centre in Khan Younis that was struck earlier today. The site was sheltering tens of thousands of displaced people.
As the Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim, Jamie McGoldrick, said this morning, reports indicate that 9 people have been killed and 75 more people were injured.
In a post on social media, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, said that as the heavy bombardment of Khan Younis continues, ordering trapped people to evacuate and then bombing them before they can even do so is “callous.”
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders yesterday including to areas where Al Amal and Nasser hospitals are located.
The affected area covers some 4 square kilometres. There are about nearly 90,000 residents in the area, in addition to an estimated 425,000 internally displaced people.
Hostilities continue in the vicinity of Nasser Hospitals and an international emergency medical team deployed at the hospital reports that no one can enter or exit the facility due to ongoing bombardments. Health staff are reported to be digging graves on hospital grounds due to the large numbers of fatalities anticipated and the need to manage burials.
On the response front, so far in January, the World Food Programme (WFP) says it has reached nearly 930,000 affected people with food assistance across the Gaza Strip. In addition, WFP distributed canned meat, biscuits and wheat flour to more than 13,000 people in the northern governorates of Gaza.
The capacity of humanitarian agencies to operate safely and effectively anywhere in Gaza remains heavily compromised by recurrent denials of access to the north, restrictions on the import of critical equipment, and the intensity of hostilities, among other factors.
Ukraine
Attacks have continued in the country today. In Kherson city, in the south of the country, local authorities said that a hospital was damaged, and four civilians were injured, including three doctors.
Attacks on civilian homes and infrastructure have significantly increased over the last two months. The World Health Organization reports that out of 35 attacks on hospitals worldwide since the start of the year, 14 were in Ukraine. In 2023, there were 227 incidents impacting hospitals across the country.
Since yesterday morning, humanitarian organizations have been providing emergency assistance to civilians affected by the latest attacks in the Kharkiv and Dnipro Regions. This support includes first aid, psychosocial assistance, and shelter materials for emergency repairs.