The consignment through the WHO Humanitarian Bridge Initiative in Cyprus arrived at Ashdod port in Israel and is being prepared for onward distribution to the devastated enclave. 

“This shipment marks a significant operational milestone in strengthening WHO’s interregional humanitarian logistics capacity for a region affected by the ongoing conflict, particularly in Gaza,” the UN agency said. 

Scaling up delivery 

The Humanitarian Bridge Initiative is a coordinated effort between WHO offices in Cyprus and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. 

It is designed to enable the timely, scalable and efficient delivery of essential health commodities to the Gaza Strip by sea under the framework of Security Council resolution 2720 (2023), which called for establishing a UN mechanism to step up aid provision through countries that were not party to the conflict there. 

The Cypriot Government is taking the lead alongside the UN 2720 mechanism team implemented by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS).  

Together, they provide a neutral, transparent and internationally coordinated maritime corridor for humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza. 

Saving time, reducing bottlenecks 

“The mechanism further reinforces Cyprus’s role as a strategic humanitarian logistics staging point, leveraging its geographic proximity, approximately 370 kilometers from Gaza, and its position within the European Union single market to facilitate the rapid mobilization and dispatch of critical supplies,” WHO said. 

Moreover, “by complementing existing humanitarian corridors for Gaza and diversifying supply routes, the initiative has the potential to significantly reduce delivery timelines and mitigate operational bottlenecks that have constrained humanitarian access in the past.”  

Looking ahead, WHO said the bridge initiative will continue to support strategic prepositioning, consolidation and the rapid dispatch of essential supplies, thus strengthening the agency’s operational readiness for Gaza as well as health emergencies and disasters across the whole region. 

UN support continues 

The development comes as the UN and partners continue to deliver critical assistance to Gaza even as the Kerem Shalom/Karem Abu Salem border crossing with Israel remains the only one open for cargo. 

On Tuesday, they brought in over 270,000 litres of fuel to keep critical humanitarian services running, UN Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at Headquarters in New York. 

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also collected animal fodder while UN child rights agency UNICEF retrieved more than 240 pallets of supplies including nutrition, medicines and kits containing personal care items such as sanitary pads, toothpaste and body wash.   

Reviving crop production 

FAO has announced a scale-up of its cash assistance to reactivate local crop production for an additional 1,000 Gazan farmers.   

“The assistance builds on a successful pilot from last year, when 200 farmers managed to grow more than 500 metric tonnes of fresh vegetables, with support received through the Humanitarian Fund for the occupied Palestinian territory,” said Mr. Dujarric. 

The UN agency estimates that farmers will be able to produce some 5,000 metric tonnes of vegetables – enough to feed roughly 95,000 people for a whole year – which will help address food insecurity in Gaza while promoting employment and income generation. 

Briefing ambassadors from Beirut, Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said he arrived to find “anxiety and tensions at levels I have not witnessed in many years”, as airstrikes and drone activity continue to shake the capital and surrounding areas.

“The situation on both sides of the Blue Line demands not only the Council’s closest attention, but also your collective action to avert an even worse crisis,” he stressed, describing the discussion as “urgent”.

Mr. Fletcher said the humanitarian toll has worsened sharply. “Over the past four weeks, more than 1,240 people have been killed… and another 3,500 injured,” he said, noting that women, children and first responders are among the dead.

‘Coercive displacement’

More than 1.1 million people were displaced in that time, including hundreds of thousands of children. “A cycle of coercive displacement is unfolding,” he warned, with families repeatedly forced to flee. “Displacement is not a solution, but a painful last resort… a temporary way to preserve dignity.”

He said civilians on both sides of the line are living in fear, as rockets continue to be fired into northern Israel while Israeli strikes devastate parts of southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley. Entire villages have been flattened, and vital infrastructure destroyed, including most bridges south of the Litani river.

“Civilians, wherever they are, in Israel and in Lebanon, must be protected,” Mr. Fletcher said, underscoring that international humanitarian law requires distinction, proportionality and precaution. “Healthcare, water and electricity…must also and always be spared.”

Isolation grows

The impact on basic services is severe, with hospitals and clinics forced to close and schools turned into shelters. “Entire communities are becoming increasingly isolated,” he added.

Despite the crisis, humanitarian agencies have scaled up operations, delivering millions of meals and essential supplies. But funding remains short. Of a $308 million emergency appeal, only $94 million has been received so far.

Above all, Mr. Fletcher conveyed a direct message from those affected: “They want safety. They want dignity. They want this to stop.”

He urged Council members to act decisively, posing stark questions about how civilians will be protected, how the international community should respond to mass displacement, and how to prevent further political instability.

Turning to the Lebanese people, he offered a message of solidarity and resolve: “Don’t give up on the idea of Lebanon. If co-existence fails here, it stands to fail everywhere.”

“We have often said that we cannot let Lebanon fail,” he concluded. “Now is a real test of that promise.”

Peacekeeper killings ‘should not have happened’

The emergency meeting was called by France after three Indonesian peacekeepers serving with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were killed this week, and several others seriously wounded, in two separate incidents that occurred within a 24-hour period and amid the wider war in the region. 

“These tragic developments should not have happened,” said UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who briefed alongside Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari and the UN relief chief. 

UNIFIL is conducting investigations to determine the circumstances of “the two abhorrent incidents” but peacekeepers are also facing “a worrying increase in denials of freedom of movement and aggressive behaviour,” Mr. Lacroix reported.

“We say it clearly, and there has been a need to say it far too often: Peacekeepers must never be a target,” he stressed. 

“All acts that endanger the peacekeepers must immediately stop…The inviolability of United Nations installations must be respected.”

In the interim, UNIFIL continuously reassesses its deployment to mitigate risks and strengthen force protection.  The mission remains in constant contact with the parties “to avoid misunderstandings, de-conflict and de-escalate where possible.”

Council backing, ‘indispensable’

He underscored the critical need to support the sides in fully implementing Security Council resolution 1701 (2006), which ended hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah two decades ago.

“In this exceptionally dangerous period, the Council’s strong and unified backing for UNIFIL and its peacekeepers is not merely important – it is indispensable,” he said.

“The women and men serving under this mandate must know that this Council stands firmly behind them.”

To see all our live coverage of the crisis in the Gulf from today, go here, and for full speaker-by-speaker coverage of this important emergency meeting on the Middle East crisis, visit our UN Meetings Coverage site here.

More than a month since war erupted in the Middle East, UN agencies confirmed on Tuesday that huge numbers of people have returned to Syria from Lebanon “exhausted, traumatized and with very, very few belongings”. Meanwhile, the UN International Maritime Organization said that another vessel has been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, increasing concerns of further delays in transporting lifesaving aid. The Security Council met in New York in emergency session on Lebanon. Stay with us for live updates. App users can follow coverage here

Speaking from Damascus, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)’s representative in Syria, Asseer Al-Madaien, said that the country has seen a “sharp rise” in people crossing the border from Lebanon – more than 200,000 between 2 and 27 March. 

“The vast majority, nearly 180,000, are Syrians, including Syrian refugees who had fled Syria seeking safety in the past in Lebanon and now forced to flee again,” she said.

 More than 28,000 Lebanese also have crossed into Syria. 

Fleeing with nothing

“Most are people fleeing the intense Israeli bombardments,” Ms. Al-Madaien told reporters in Geneva. “They arrive exhausted, traumatized and with very, very few belongings.”

The UNHCR representative said that the agency is preparing for as many as 350,000 to cross into Syria, depending on the course of the conflict.

As the humanitarian fallout continues to deepen over a month since Israeli and US airstrikes on Iran began, sparking a wider regional war, supply lines across the Middle East are already severely disrupted. 

The UN World Food Programme (WFP)’s Director of Supply, Chain Corinne Fleischer, said that the agency is concerned about “all [its] big operations”.

WFP currently has “70,000 metric tonnes of food that is impacted by the war…About half of them are on chartered bulk vessels and the other half are on in containers which are either on route or stuck in a port and don’t move,” she said.

Speaking from Rome, Ms. Fleischer clarified that WFP has no vessels in the Strait of Hormuz but is impacted “by the ripple effect of what’s happening there… vessels being stuck in ports, not berthing to ports, not leaving ports, containers not being offloaded”. 

COVID precedent

The WFP official warned that similar global supply chain disruptions seen during COVID took “four to five months to get back into place once the situation’s stabilized”. 

Shipping costs have surged as carriers avoid the Suez Canal linked to the Middle East war and have to re-route around the Cape of Good Hope. This adds up to 30 days to the journey and has driven rates up 15 to 25 per cent, with fuel price hikes also hitting firms’ bottom lines.

Speaking about mitigating measures, Ms. Fleischer explained that WFP has been “asking for priority cargo for humanitarian operations” as it is the only UN organization with its own shipping department directly engaging with shipping lines and vessel owners. 

She said that the agency has successfully negotiated a waiver for the surcharges that are being put in place by shipping lines and certain ports at risk in the Middle East, which represent between $2,000 to $4,000 per container – a saving of about $1.5 million so far. 

Afghanistan aid delays

WFP is also rerouting cargo, for instance to Afghanistan, where 17 million people are food insecure. 

Earlier this year, food aid sourced in Pakistan was impacted by the Pakistan-Afghanistan war and initially re-routed through Iran, Ms. Fleischer said. 

“While we were [rerouting] to get into Bandar Abbas port of Iran, the war broke out” she explained. “We had to put it in Jebel Ali [port] in Dubai and now we will truck it from Dubai through Saudi Arabia…That adds about 1,000 euros per tonne and of course another three weeks.”

The WFP official expressed further concern about Sudan, with 19 million people “acutely hungry”, as well as Somalia and South Sudan, where operations are buckling under longer lead times and higher costs.

“The financing of humanitarian operations has, since several years, not being where it should be,” she said. “We have eroded any buffer stocks. We’re living from hand-to-mouth in these operations.”

With famine in areas of Sudan “there is no time”, she insisted. “Our operations and pipelines don’t allow for a three-weeks-longer rerouting through the Horn of Africa.”