This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Gaza: WHO chief calls for end to latest hospital siege 

As bombardments by the Israeli military reportedly continued overnight across Gaza, along with ground incursions and heavy fighting, the head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) issued an alert on Tuesday for staff and patients at besieged Al-Awda hospital in the north of the enclave.

“Medical staff inside the hospital reported an attack on 20 May, with snipers aiming at the building and an artillery rocket hitting the fifth floor,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

Around 150 staff and 22 patients and their companions have remained “trapped inside” the hospital since Sunday, the WHO Director-General added.

According to the WHO, only around a third of hospitals in Gaza are still functioning – 12 out of 36.

The development came as the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported that the ongoing Israeli military operation and evacuation orders have uprooted more than 900,000 in the last two weeks, or some four in 10 Gazans.

This includes 812,000 people from Rafah and more than 100,000 others in northern Gaza, with hundreds of thousands experiencing dreadful living conditions, OCHA said in its latest update on the emergency.

Ukraine: humanitarian, health needs soar as Kharkiv hostilities intensify

To Ukraine, where more than 16,000 people have fled parts of Kharkiv region in the last 10 days, amid reports of significant advances by Russian forces.

The warning comes as the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, expressed deep concerns about “relentless” Russian air and ground attacks in the northeastern region.

Spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told journalists in Geneva that the majority of those evacuated were elderly or had poor mobility or disabilities and had been unable to leave their homes earlier.

“UNHCR is concerned that conditions in Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city, which is already hosting some 200,000 internally displaced people – could become even more difficult if the ground offensive and relentless aerial attacks continue. This could force many people to leave Kharkiv for safety and survival, seeking protection elsewhere.”

The UNHCR spokesperson highlighted the fact that attacks on energy infrastructure have become “particularly critical” in Kharkiv, where the energy supply is already “well below standard capacity” and households suffer from power shortages.

Meanwhile, the UN aid office, OCHA, reported that three days of attacks in Kharkiv city caused “scores of civilian casualties including children”.

According to WHO, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, “on average, 200 ambulances per year are damaged or destroyed in shelling attacks”.

OCHA said the UN’s $3.1 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for the country in 2024 remains only 23 per cent funded. 

UNHCR’s response in Ukraine and in neighbouring refugee-hosting countries is only 16 per cent funded, which, at the approach of the mid-year mark, is “abysmal”, Ms. Mantoo said.

OCHA aid call for southern African nations suffering worst drought in 100 years 

Drought and other extreme weather events in southern Africa that are causing misery for more than 61 million people could prove catastrophic unless funding for humanitarian relief is found urgently, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, has said.

Most of Zambia has been affected by intense dry conditions, along with Zimbabwe, southern Malawi, northern Namibia and south-eastern Angola.

Crop production, livestock and water supplies have also been hit across much of Botswana, Lesotho, central Mozambique, central South Africa and parts of Madagascar, in one of the most intense mid-season dry spells in over 100 years.

In addition to the drought, cyclones and flash-flooding linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon have displaced thousands in several of these countries.

Urgent action must be taken to help the region’s people before the lean season comes in July, OCHA has insisted, in a call to support a $5.5 billion appeal from the South Africa Development Community; it aims to assist more than 56 million people including 3.5 million children in need of boosted nutrition relief.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.