This is the News in Brief from the United Nations. 

Besieged Gaza hospital misery continues while rainfall prompts new health scare 

UN health agency WHO hailed on Tuesday the “heroic efforts” of staff at Gaza’s besieged Al-Shifa hospital and expressed concern for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the enclave where heavy rainfall has caused flooding and aggravated the already dire health crisis.

Here’s WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris briefing reporters in Geneva on the compounded health threats:

“We’ve already got outbreaks of diarrhoeal diseases, we’ve recorded well over 30,000 cases when we would normally expect 2,000 cases in the same period and this will just add further to the suffering. We’ve got a lack of clean water, we’ve got people very, very crowded together. This is another reason why we are begging for a ceasefire to happen now.”

At Al-Shifa, which is at the centre of the fighting in Gaza City and has been without power since 11 November, some 700 patients are still trapped with more than 400 health staff. 

Another 3,000 displaced persons have also sought refuge in the hospital grounds. 

Asked about the possibility of evacuating patients, Dr. Harris explained that all of those remaining at Al-Shifa required critical support to stay alive. Moving them “would be a very difficult thing to ask in the best circumstances”, Dr. Harris said, let alone amid bombing, armed clashes and a lack of fuel for ambulances.

‘Close the climate ambition gap’ says UN chief ahead of COP28

The COP28 climate conference held in Dubai later this month “must be the place to urgently close the climate ambition gap”, as emissions continue to rise and climate chaos intensifies, UN chief António Guterres insisted on Tuesday.

Mr. Guterres was commenting on the latest report by UN climate change body UNFCCC, which shows, he said, that global climate ambition stagnated over the past year and national climate plans are “strikingly misaligned” with the science.   

“As the reality of climate chaos pounds communities around the world – with ever fiercer floods, fires and droughts – the chasm between need and action is more menacing than ever,” the UN chief said.

The UN’s climate change body says that global greenhouse gas emissions should fall by 45 per cent by the end of this decade compared to 2010 levels to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

However according to its latest report, emissions are set to rise by nine per cent instead.

Mr. Guterres called for an acceleration of net zero timelines “so that developed countries get there as close as possible to 2040 and emerging economies as close as possible to 2050”. He also urged increased investment in renewable energy, to go hand in hand with a fossil fuels phase out.

 The UN chief stressed that developed countries must rebuild trust “by delivering on their finance commitments”. 

World Diabetes Day: UN health agency warns over rise in disease, lack of care

One hundred years after the discovery of insulin, millions of people with diabetes around the world still cannot access the care they need, risking severe complications, WHO warned on Tuesday’s World Diabetes Day.

Diabetes is a chronic disease which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. 

WHO said that more than 460 million people worldwide live with diabetes and millions more are at risk. The UN health agency stressed that people with the condition require ongoing care and support to manage it and avoid complications, which can include blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and lower limb amputation. 

While type 1 diabetes is not preventable, maintaining a healthy diet, physical activity and avoiding tobacco use can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes.

WHO warned that the global prevalence of the disease has nearly doubled since 1980, rising from 4.7 per cent to 8.5 per cent in the adult population.

The UN health agency said that this reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese. Over the past decade, diabetes prevalence has risen faster in low and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

Rise in anti-personnel landmine victims fuelled by Ukraine war: new report

New use of anti-personnel landmines drove an increase in casualties from the weapons last year, according to a UN-backed civil society report released on Tuesday.

The Landmine Monitor 2023 shows that 4,710 people were injured or killed by landmines and explosive remnants of war across 49 countries and two other areas in 2022. 

According to the report, civilians accounted for over four in five casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war, half of them children.

The highest number of casualties, 834, was recorded in Syria, followed by Ukraine where 608 people were killed or injured, the report said. 

Amidst the conflict in Ukraine, the country saw a ten-fold increase in the number of civilian casualties from the lethal weapons compared to 2021. Yemen and Myanmar both recorded more than 500 casualties last year.

The civil society group behind the report, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said that “the only way communities will be truly safe from the scourge of these weapons” is when all States join the international instrument addressing this threat, the Mine Ban Treaty adopted in 1997, and respect it fully. 

The publication comes days before the 164 States parties to the treaty meet at the UN in Geneva.

Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer, UN News.