UN News Today 30 May 2025 |

Gaza ‘hungriest place on earth’ as Israel blocks aid: UN humanitarians

People in Gaza continue to be deprived of lifesaving aid as international relief efforts are being severely constrained by Israel, the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA said on Friday.

Spokesperson Jens Laerke described the enclave as “the hungriest place on Earth,” stressing that it is the only defined territory in the world where the entire population is at risk of famine.

Here he is speaking to journalists in Geneva:

“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in recent history of global humanitarian response anywhere.”

Mr. Laerke said that out of nearly 900 aid trucks that were approved to enter from the Israeli side since the reopening of the Kerem Shalom border crossing 10 days ago, less than 600 have been offloaded on the Gaza side.

An even lower number has been picked up for distribution in Gaza, he added, pointing to the “congested, insecure” routes which humanitarians are assigned to use by the Israeli authorities, as well as “significant delays” in approvals.

He emphasized that the limited number of truckloads coming in is a “trickle”, and many trucks were “swarmed by desperate people” on the way.

WHO urges countries to ban flavoured tobacco products to protect young lives

The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling for governments to urgently ban flavoured tobacco and nicotine products – including cigarettes, hookahs and e-cigarettes or vapes – to protect young people from addiction and disease.

The UN agency made the appeal in a new publication issued on Friday, World No Tobacco Day.

WHO said flavours such as menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy, are “masking the harshness of tobacco” and other nicotine products, turning what are toxic products “into youth-friendly bait.”

Not only do they make quitting harder; they have also been linked to serious lung diseases. Furthermore cigarettes, which still kill up to half of all users, often contain added flavours such as menthol.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said tobacco already kills around eight million people each year.

He warned that “without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic…will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavours.”

Conflict and displacement keeping children out of school in Ituri, DR Congo

Escalating violence in Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and resulting displacement are depriving hundreds of thousands of children of an education, the UN child rights agency UNICEF said on Friday.

More than 290 schools have been damaged or destroyed this year, preventing an additional 130,000 children from attending school, bringing the total number to over 1.3 million.

Ituri is located in eastern DRC, where armed groups have threatened local communities for decades.

More than 100,000 people, half of them children, were displaced in the latest surge of violence between January and April of this year.

At least 205 people were killed, and grave violations against children – including abduction, maiming, sexual violence, and recruitment by armed groups – increased more than 30 per cent compared to the same period in 2024.

UNICEF noted that overall, more than 1.8 million conflict-affected children across four provinces in eastern DRC are out of school.

Although the agency and partners are on the ground in Ituri providing emergency assistance and supporting community resilience, funding shortfalls are putting their work at risk. 

UNICEF is seeking $57 million to respond to the crisis in eastern DRC but so far $35.6 million has been received.