UN News Today 17 June 2025 |

More Gazans killed trying to get food, healthcare near to ‘full disaster’

Gaza’s health system is at breaking point, overwhelmed time and again by scores of people killed or injured near aid distribution sites, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

After 20 months of Israeli bombing, only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still partially functional, medical supplies are critically low and no fuel has entered the Strip for more than 100 days.

Dr Thanos Gargavanis, WHO trauma surgeon and emergency officer, said that the level of violence has not diminished since the Israel-Iran crisis erupted last Friday.

His comments came amid new reports that more than 50 Palestinians had been killed on Tuesday trying to access food, this time near an aid distribution site in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Here’s Dr. Gargavanis now, speaking from the enclave:

“WHO is not a forensic agency, which means that we’re not in a position to clearly identify from the nature of the injury who’s causing them. What we can say, though, is that we’re talking of gunshot wound injuries, and we’re talking of very few incidents of shrapnel injuries.”

The UN health agency said that Tuesday’s mass casualty event had left “hundreds of casualties” who had completely overwhelmed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

Nasser is Gaza’s largest referral health facility and the last main hospital in Khan Younis. It is situated within the evacuation zone announced by the Israeli military on 12 June.

Ukraine: Hundreds of drones launched by Russian forces overnight

Ukraine faced another deadly night of Russian airstrikes involving hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, UN monitors said on Tuesday.

“In a countrywide assault last night, Kyiv bore the brunt,” said Danielle Bell, Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

A “swarm” of missiles struck at least 30 sites across the capital, she added.

In just one attack in the Ukrainian capital, at least 14 people were killed in an apartment block and more than 100 were injured.

Other buildings in Kyiv were also hit, damaged or destroyed, as well as more in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia.

They included a nursery and a centre for children with special needs.

Matthias Schmale, the top UN aid official in Ukraine, condemned the attacks and stressed that all civilians are protected by international humanitarian law.

They “must never be a target” and war must not be normalised, Mr. Schmale insisted.

The world must not tolerate what’s happening to Afghan women and girls: UN Women

Afghanistan and Yemen rank as the worst countries in the world for women, according to a new study by UN Women released on Tuesday.

Compared with Afghan men, the country’s women are 76 per cent less likely to have equality in health, education, financial inclusion and decision making.

The world should not accept this “dangerous precedent”, said Sofia Calltorp, Director of UN Women in Geneva:

“Nearly eight out of 10 young women are excluded from training. Just 24 per cent of women are participating in the workforce, compared with 89 per cent of men.”

Women’s rights are not expendable, Ms. Calltorp told journalists, before urging the international community to help address the crisis in Afghanistan.

As bad as Afghanistan is, Yemen is worse, the senior official said. There, many women have “no choice but to take whatever work they find … just to help to put food on the table”, she explained.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.

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