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Public health conditions in Gaza are “catastrophic”, with hospitals operating far beyond capacity. Some life-saving medicines are totally out of stock, while deaths from malnutrition and disease are on the rise, the UN health agency warned on Tuesday.

Fewer than half of Gaza’s hospitals and under 38 per cent of primary healthcare centres are partially functioning – or are doing so at minimal levels – said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative for the West Bank and Gaza.

The transformation over two decades of the once thriving Syrian city of Sweida from tourist destination to a landscape marked by violence and loss has been detailed by the chief of a UN migration mission who recently visited the area.

Eleonora Servino was on the first UN aid convoy to Suweida, which saw a recent escalation of violence that left many dead and thousands displaced.

The UN Security Council has expressed alarm at the sharp escalation of violence in Syria’s Sweida region since mid-July, condemning attacks against civilians and calling for urgent protection and humanitarian access.

Unrest began on 12 July when mutual kidnappings escalated into armed conflict between Druze groups and Bedouin tribes, drawing in Syrian security forces.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned the killing of six Palestinian journalists in Gaza this past weekend, his Spokesman said on Monday. 

The reporters – five of whom worked for the Al Jazeera media network – were killed in a targeted Israeli strike in Gaza City the previous day. 

Hostilities have continued in Sweida, Syria, despite a ceasefire agreement, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update published on Wednesday. 

The 19 July truce followed weeks of sectarian clashes, Israeli airstrikes and grave human rights violations in the southern governorate, also known as As-Sweida.

As a result, more than 190,000 people have been displaced there and in neighbouring Dar’a and Rural Damascus governorates.

As conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel continue to deteriorate, a senior UN official upheld the need for a political solution to the crisis in Gaza that can lead to a lasting peace between the two peoples.  

Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenča briefed a Security Council meeting on Tuesday called by Israel to discuss the plight of hostages still being held in the war-ravaged enclave.

Children in Gaza are dying not just from hunger, but from the total collapse of the systems meant to protect them, UN agencies warned on Tuesday.

With 96 per cent of households lacking clean water, many malnourished children are not surviving long enough to receive hospital care.

James Elder, Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told a media briefing in Geneva that it would be a mistake to assume that the situation was improving.

High stakes negotiations got underway at the UN Geneva on Tuesday to agree on a legally binding treaty to curb plastic pollution, attended by delegates from nearly 180 countries. 

“The world wants and indeed needs a plastic conventional treaty because the crisis is getting out of hand – and people are frankly outraged,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN agency leading the talks.

“The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza,” UN-backed food security experts said on Tuesday, in a call to action amid unrelenting conflict, mass displacement and the near-total collapse of essential services in the war-battered enclave.

A fragile de-escalation in Syria’s Sweida region is “largely holding” after weeks of violence displaced 175,000 people, killed hundreds and devastated critical infrastructure – exposing deep fissures in the country’s political transition.

Declared on July 19, the ceasefire followed a harrowing wave of sectarian clashes, Israeli airstrikes and grave human rights violations.