WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus deplored renewed fighting Monday and Tuesday in and around northern Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, the largest medical compound in the besieged enclave, saying that “hospitals should never be battlegrounds.”  He also noted that the hospital, originally the largest and most advanced in Gaza, had only “recently restored minimal health […] Continue reading ->
A United Nations report released Monday said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence, including rape and gang rape of Israeli women, occurred during the Hamas-led incursion into some 22 Israeli communities near the Gaza border on 7 October. More than 1,200 people were killed in the incident, mostly civilians.  […] Continue reading ->
COPENHAGEN –  In Lebanon, international donors are supporting a network of public primary health care centers to test for diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), offering treatment equally to Lebanese nationals and Syrian refugees who are unlikely to return anytime soon to their war-torn homeland.  In Kenya, a new national insurance law aims to make […] Continue reading ->
COPENHAGEN –  While conflict and natural disasters are usually played out in the media against dramatic scenes of mass casualty response and rescue teams, there’s an iceberg of chronic health conditions that can be even more life threatening and these need far greater attention in emergency response.  That is the theme of a global high […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization says it is making contingency preparations for a possible Israeli incursion into the Gazan city of Rafah. The city hugging the Egyptian border remains under the control of the militant Palestinian Hamas government, nearly four months after Israel’s devastating invasion that followed a Hamas assault October 7 on some 22 Israeli […] Continue reading ->
One year after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake wracked Türkiye and Syria, some 690,000 people  remain displaced in southern Türkiye, out of the 3 million people that initially lost their homes  when the natural disaster hit in the early morning of 6 February 2023.    Another 40,000 Syrians remain internally displaced mainly in the northern region of […] Continue reading ->
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and two other international relief agencies all said that they are withdrawing emergency medical teams from Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza after intensified fighting around the hospital area made it impossible for staff to continue emergency care functions.  “After days of artillery fighting in Gaza’s Middle Area, Israeli forces […] Continue reading ->