UN News Today 27 March 2026 |

Aid shipments getting back on track in Middle East: WHO

A bit of good news from the Middle East to start, with the announcement from the UN World Health Organization (WHO) that aid shipments are getting “back on track” there.

Speaking from Dubai, which is one of WHO’s key relief hubs, the agency’s Robert Blanchard, noted that the war and Iranian attacks throughout the Gulf had caused major disruption to humanitarian flights:

“I would say the first two weeks of the crisis really set us back. But we’re now receiving bookings for commercially-scheduled cargo, and we’re able to begin moving supplies out as we were in the past….but most of the airlines are now back to around 50 or 60 per cent of their capacity.”

The WHO emergency operations team lead said that a humanitarian convoy is now heading to Lebanon “with enough medicines and surgical supplies to treat 50,000 patients”. 

A humanitarian charter flight is also being loaded with more than 78 tonnes of paediatric and essential medicines for delivery to Afghanistan next week, along with more lifesaving medicines for Gaza, Mr. Blanchard said. 

Lebanon: ‘Nowhere safe to go’ warn UNICEF, UNHCR, UN Women

In Lebanon, UN teams have warned that civilians are enduring “intensified Israeli strikes” with little warning about impending attacks.

The development comes as the Israeli military continues to target locations linked to Hezbollah militants, who began firing rockets at Israel soon after Israeli and US bombing began of Iran.

The UN refugee agency’s Representative in Lebanon, Karolina Lindholm Billing, said on Friday that an attack in Bashura in central Beirut last week was accompanied by a warning issued “maybe less than an hour before the strike hit…very early in the morning”:

“The second strike that was close to several collective shelters hosting displaced (people), there was no warning, it was a direct target. And as far as I’m aware, there have been no sites designated as safe where civilians have been advised to go to.” 

More than one million people have now fled their homes in Lebanon in just a few weeks.

Also working in Lebanon, the UN agency UN Women reported the trauma faced by families forced to flee their homes at night without knowing where to go, “losing their livelihoods (and) everything that is familiar”.

Desalination plant strike fears for Gulf States

Ongoing Iranian attacks on Gulf States have focused attention and fears on the region’s desalination plants which provide drinking water to millions.

Nearly 40 million people in the six countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council depend to varying degrees on desalinated water, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

That’s around 65 per cent of the population of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, said UN body’s Ziad Khayat:

“If the conflict escalates further and destination plans are hit, the disruption of desalination plants would affect the water supply to millions of people…In addition to a direct hit, many of these desalination plants are also linked to power stations and power supply.”

Mr. Khayat explained that if energy plants are hit, there will be a knock-on impact on desalination plants, also affecting the water supply “immediately” to millions of people.

The senior sustainability officer also pointed out that any contamination of the waters in the Gulf would also affect desalination plants in the region, which take their water from the Persian Gulf.

You can hear the full interview with UN News’s Nathalie Minard on our Audio Hub now.

Daniel Johnson, UN News