This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Protect Gaza hospitals: WHO chief

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) again called for hospitals to be protected following the end of an Israeli siege on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Monday.

“I repeat: hospitals must be respected and protected; they must not be used as battlefields,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, above a photo of the burned-out façade.

Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza’s main hospital following a two-week operation that left hundreds dead, according to media reports. In an earlier tweet, Tedros said 21 patients there had died.

Separately, Tedros reported that a WHO team was on a humanitarian mission at another hospital, Al-Aqsa, on Sunday when a tent camp inside the compound was hit by an Israeli airstrike.

Four people were killed and 17 injured.

The WHO team was at the hospital assessing needs and collecting incubators to be sent to north Gaza, he said, and all members were accounted for.

Afghanistan: More than 10 children killed or injured in two separate mine blasts

Moving now to Afghanistan, where more than 10 children were killed or maimed in two separate landmine explosions, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a tweet on Monday, expressing deep sadness.

The incidents occurred in Ghazni and Herat provinces. UNICEF extended deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wished a swift recovery to the injured.

Since 1989, nearly 44,000 Afghan civilians have been killed or injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war, an average of around 110 people per month, according to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

A UNICEF report on the impact of explosive ordnance for 2022 documented around 700 children maimed or killed – a rate of approximately two children per day.

Heavy rains destroy farmland and homes across 7 Afghan provinces 

Meanwhile, heavy rains across Afghanistan this past weekend destroyed more than 1,500 acres of agricultural land and caused severe damage to over 540 homes and other critical infrastructure in seven provinces, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, has reported.

Initial reports and assessments indicated that most damage was reported in the provinces of Faryab, located in the north; Nangarhar in the east, and Daikundi province in the Central Highlands region. 

This is the third time that the northern region has experienced flooding in less than a month, OCHA said, noting that seven people were killed and 384 families affected in heavy rains that occurred on 21 March and over 26 and 27 March.

OCHA, humanitarian partners and Afghanistan’s disaster management agency are closely monitoring developments.

Dianne Penn, UN News.