UN News Today 03 October 2025 |

Drone victims, terror and death: 30 minutes in a Gaza hospital

UN aid teams on Friday highlighted the disturbing situation in Gaza’s makeshift hospitals, where premature babies cry for oxygen and medics attempt to save children targeted by airstrikes in their tents.

Speaking from the war-shattered enclave where there are ongoing Israeli airstrikes, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder described visiting a central Gaza hospital where youngsters were either suffering or dying everywhere he looked.

“I’m talking about a little girl, Aya, who’s six years old. I’m really noticing not just the wound, but the attention that, the bobs in her hair, the care that a parent’s given before the airstrike. As we’re talking to the surgeon there, she dies on the bed in front of us. That’s 30 minutes in a hospital.”

At the same hospital, Mr. Elder reported seeing three children “all shot by quadcopters”, amid reports that people continue to be injured while desperately seeking aid from the US and Israeli-backed aid hubs which bypass the UN.

He described seeing one child bleeding to death on the floor of a hospital after reportedly being shot near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation facility and others wounded by shooting, shrapnel or burns.

Haiti: 8,000 people facing ‘famine-like’ conditions, WFP warns

To Haiti, where UN aid teams have warned that rising violence by armed groups in the capital is preventing them from reaching thousands of hungry people who need their help most.

In addition to problems of access, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that extreme funding shortages have forced it to slash rations and suspend hot meals for newly displaced families.

Reports indicate that armed groups now control nearly 90 per cent of Port-au-Prince.

This has stopped farmers from going to market and put further strain on already fragile food systems. Produce has got even more costly because of the insecurity, and this has left more families going hungry.

With more, here’s WFP’s Tanya Birkbeck:

“It’s increasingly difficult to move around the city. The city is increasingly being squeezed by armed groups and it’s increasingly difficult for people to be able to have access to food…both people who are living in their homes within the neighbourhoods where they’ve always lived but also at this point, we now have 1.3 million people who’ve been displaced in places like this.”

Ms. Birkbeck explained that people uprooted by the violence have no income or food, and that more than 8,000 of them living in displacement sites face “famine-like levels of food insecurity”.

Ukraine war more deadly than ever, warns UN rights chief

Lastly, to Ukraine, where the country’s people are in greater danger than ever, because of “relentless bombardment” by Russia and impunity for military personnel, the UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk has warned.

In an update to the Human Rights Council, he said Russian authorities continue to carry out widespread and systematic violations against Ukrainian civilians in occupied territory in the south and east.

Schools, hospitals and shelters have been targeted as part of the Russian full-scale invasion, the UN rights chief, noted, and attacks have also been intense along the frontline, with “massive” airstrikes largely in populated areas.

Since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022, the UN has documented more than 50,000 Ukrainian civilians killed and injured, including more than 3,000 children.

Mr. Türk noted that Russia has reported a much lower number of civilian casualties from alleged attacks by Ukrainian forces, but these could not be verified.

He appealed to Russia to halt all abuses against civilian prisoners including executions, torture and sexual violence – and urged Ukraine to respect the laws of war too – adding that his office continues to document grave alleged violations of international law by all parties.

Daniel Johnson, UN News