Exactly one year after a devastating earthquake hit Turkey and Syria Imogen Foulkes look at how the UN and businesses worked on the ground hand-in-hand.
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday appealed for $1.5 billion in funding to respond to the health needs of millions of people caught up in dozens of humanitarian crises around the globe, from Ukraine and Gaza to Afghanistan. We aim to reach some 87 million people with life-saving humanitarian assistance this year, said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. To do this, we need support totalling $1.5 billion, and we need this funding to arrive as early as possible and with as much flexibility as possible. A reactive approach is not enough. Tedros said an estimated 166 million people would require health assistance around the world this year, including in the occupied Palestinian territories, Ukraine, Haiti and Sudan. The health emergency requiring the most is taking place in the occupied Palestinian Territories - and Gaza in particular - where Israeli forces have carried out a relentless assault against the enclave in response to a deadly rampage b
By Arafat Barbakh, Simon Lewis and Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA/TEL AVIV/CAIRO (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday urged Israeli leaders to avoid harming civilians in the war in Gaza and to seek a path towards the creation of Palestinian state as a way to resolve the long-running wider conflict. Blinken was making his fourth visit to the Middle East since the war between Hamas and Israel erupted in October. International concern has been growing over the huge Palestinian death toll from the Israeli assault on the enclave as well as a humanitarian crisis enveloping hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. The United States and other countries are also anxious to prevent the war from spreading through the wider Middle East. Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Tel Aviv s Kirya military base on Tuesday and then with his war cabinet. He stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza, State