Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Madagascar
UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Occupied Palestinian Territory
UN Relief Chief visits Rafah crossing
While traveling from Cairo to the Rafah crossing earlier today, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, spoke of how vital that route is as a lifeline for life-saving aid into Gaza.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) notes that supplies from Egypt still need to take a detour and be inspected on the Israeli side of Kerem Shalom, pending the opening of the Rafah crossing for more direct access. Fletcher stressed the need for all the crossings to open to allow for a massive scale-up and start turning the situation around.
Speaking from Cairo yesterday, Fletcher underscored that humanitarian teams have been preparing for this moment - and now they need sufficient access to deliver the large amounts of assistance that are required.
In a separate post, Fletcher emphasized that the humanitarian community cannot deliver at the scale necessary without international NGO presence and engagement. OCHA notes that the Israeli authorities currently do not issue visas for a number of international NGOs and do not authorize many of them to send supplies into Gaza.
Meanwhile, humanitarian teams inside Gaza continue to make the most out of the opportunities afforded by the ceasefire*.
On Tuesday alone, 21 partners distributed nearly 960,000 meals through 175 kitchens, bakeries supported by the UN and its partners produced over 100,000 two-kilogramme bread bundles, UNICEF distributed more than 1 million baby diapers, and the World Health Organization (WHO) delivered three truckloads of surgical and other essential medical supplies from the agency's warehouse in Deir al Balah to the central pharmacy in Gaza city.
In a social media post, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that those medical supplies will be transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital and will meet the needs of 10,000 people. WHO also deployed an international emergency medical team to boost orthopedic surgery and trauma care. In addition, their teams set up two new operating theaters, and they are planning to add 120 more inpatient beds to Al-Shifa Hospital to expand capacity.
OCHA reports that teams from across the UN have now finished clearing the main roads leading to the Erez and Zikim crossings in the north in anticipation of their potential re-opening, which would allow aid to be brought directly into northern Gaza. Today, teams were checking the Salah Ad Din road, which has not been used for months. This is the main north-south artery besides the coastal Al Rasheed road. The humanitarian community's aim is to increase the roads available to its teams to move around within Gaza.
Also on Tuesday, multiple UN agencies visited the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza city, which was severely affected by the recent military operation. The team met with returnees and with those who have remained all along and heard from them how determined they are to rebuild. Their main humanitarian priority was access to water, alongside food, shelter and the removal of debris. Those who have lost their homes were staying in tents, while those who returned to homes that were still inhabitable have begun clearing rubble and cleaning up.
Meanwhile, over the past week, the UN 2720 mechanism has secured Israeli clearance for additional supplies, raising the UN and its partners' cleared pipeline to nearly 200,000 metric tons. This includes food; medical and nutrition supplies; shelter items; supplies aimed at supporting water, sanitation and hygiene operations; telecommunications equipment; and education materials. The items are currently in Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Israel, the West Bank, or on their way to Gaza.
According to COGAT figures presented to the mediators, yesterday, 716 trucks crossed into Gaza through crossings that Israeli authorities control, including 16 trucks carrying fuel and gas - with 93 of the total trucks passing through Kissufim crossing and the remaining 623 going through Kerem Shalom. These numbers reflect trucks sent through the commercial sector, bilateral donations, and the UN-coordinated system combined.
The UN and its partners continue to send even more supplies to those crossings - offloading them there and collecting them from inside Gaza. Yesterday, through the UN 2720 mechanism, UN teams and their partners sent wheat flour, food parcels, nutrition supplements, date bars, food supplies for kitchens, hygiene kits, sanitary pads, diapers, pulse oximeters, medicines, tents and animal fodder.
Between Friday and Tuesday - and despite the crossings being less accessible during the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees - the UN and its partners' teams were able to collect nearly 3,500 metric tons of essential supplies from those crossings. This is based on UN 2720's tracking, and those efforts continue.
*Donations made to UN Crisis Relief help UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs reach people in Gaza and the West Bank with urgent support.
Madagascar
Hunger, climate shocks and disease outbreaks drive humanitarian needs
In recent years, Madagascar has faced El Niño-induced drought, multiple cyclones, and locust infestations that have devastated crops. A malaria outbreak earlier this year has further strained an already fragile health system.
According to the UN and its partners, nearly 29,000 people are experiencing emergency levels of hunger - or Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 4 - in the Grand Sud region. This figure is projected to soar to 110,000 by early 2026, with malnutrition and disease outbreaks continuing to escalate. Funding cuts have further constrained humanitarians' ability to respond.
The National Office for Risk and Disaster Management - with support from the UN and its humanitarian partners - is finalizing a National Humanitarian Response Plan to address food insecurity, malnutrition and diseases. That plan will run until April 2026. Partners are also working on plans to prepare ahead of cyclones.
Posted on 16 October 2025
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
