Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Somalia
UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Gaza: UN staff and facilities face grave risks, despite ceasefire
OCHA warns that despite the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, UN staff and facilities continue to come under fire, posing unacceptable risks to their safety.
On Monday in northern Gaza, a yard in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East school in Jabalya was bombed, reportedly by an Israeli quadcopter. On Tuesday night in Deir al Balah, a group of armed Palestinians fired at a UNOPS team, striking one of their clearly marked vehicles with multiple rounds. The team had finished loading fuel and carrying out monitoring work at the Kerem Shalom crossing. Thankfully, no one was injured in either of these attacks.
The UN reiterates that civilians, including humanitarian workers, and civilian infrastructure - including humanitarian convoys, supplies and facilities - must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law. Attacks expose UN staff, NGO partners, and the people who depend on their services to grave risks, including death and injury, and further impede humanitarian work. The UN urges all parties to protect civilian lives and allow the safe passage of life-saving aid.
Despite these risks - as well as other obstacles preventing a full implementation of the humanitarian scale-up - the UN and its partners continue providing services and critical items to people in need across Gaza.
Between Sunday and Tuesday, humanitarian partners assisted some 18,000 families with monthly food parcels through 59 distribution points. Since the start of November, over 204,000 families - nearly half of Gaza's population - have received food parcels.
Humanitarians are also scaling up nutrition services. The number of malnutrition treatment sites operating across the Strip now stands at 140, following the opening of eight new locations in the north last week.
Partners leading on water support are working to reduce people's dependence on water trucking by supporting the restoration of wells and the extension of pipelines, as well as other critical infrastructure. Similar efforts are underway to restore parts of Gaza's decimated sewage system.
Between 19 and 26 November, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) distributed 16 reproductive health kits to medical facilities across Gaza. This is sufficient to support some 200 safe deliveries over the next three months. The agency has also distributed 400,000 units of essential maternal health medicines - including oxytocin, antibiotics, corticosteroids, analgesics, antiseptics and supplements - to health facilities, to further support safe deliveries, alongside infection control and postnatal care. During the same period, UNFPA teams distributed oral contraceptives to health facilities, supporting an estimated 100 women for two months. They also distributed 90 midwifery kits to enable safe deliveries and nearly 1,500 kits to support new mothers' recovery and newborn care.
Many of these humanitarian efforts are made possible by the UN's mine action partners, who assess key sites for potential explosive hazards. On Wednesday alone, five such assessments were carried out.
West Bank: ongoing violence causes casualties, damage, displacement
OCHA says that violence continues unabated across the West Bank with casualties, damage and displacement reported on a daily basis. Palestinians' movements are increasingly constrained, with thousands placed under curfew and many others subjected to restrictions that severely limit their access to workplaces, schools and essential services. As a result, humanitarian needs are deepening - as is people's dependence on aid.
Updated figures released yesterday by OCHA indicate that more than 1,600 attacks perpetrated by Israeli setters since the beginning of 2025 led to casualties, property damage or both - affecting over 270 Palestinian communities across the West Bank.
The number of Palestinians injured in these attacks has now topped 1,000, with most of them sustaining physical assault, hit by stones or inhaling teargas.
Some 700 Palestinians were injured by settlers themselves; the rest were either injured by Israeli forces, or it remains unknown whether they were injured by Israeli forces or settlers. This toll of about 700 is roughly double the number of Palestinians injured by Israeli settlers in settler attacks in all of 2024, when about 360 such injuries were documented.
The killings and violence must stop, and the perpetrators must be held accountable. OCHA stresses once again that Palestinians in the West Bank must be protected.
Somalia
UN fast-tracks funds for drought response
Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher has allocated US$10 million from the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund for the drought response in Somalia.
Drought conditions are intensifying in northern, central and southern regions, pushing struggling Somali communities to the edge. Forecasts indicate that rains will remain below-average, particularly in these regions.
The new funds will support 600,000 people in the northern regions and focus on health, nutrition and food security, as well as water, sanitation and hygiene services.
The drought comes amid an already dire humanitarian situation. At least 4.4 million people - more than one in five people in the country - are projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity between October and December this year.
Children are particularly affected in such crises. Partners report that more than 1.8 million children under 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition between August 2025 and July 2026.
Health and nutrition services are collapsing due to crippling funding shortfalls.*
With just over a month left in the year, the $1.4 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Somalia is just over 24 per cent funded, with $346 million received.
*Donations made to UN Crisis Relief help UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs reach people in Somalia with urgent support.
Posted on 28 November 2025
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