Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
First Gaza aid deliveries in months “a smokescreen”
The first aid deliveries in nearly three months were allowed into the Gaza Strip by Israel on 21 May amid ongoing heavy bombardment and the continued seizure of territory by the Israeli military. The amount of aid allowed in is nowhere near enough to address the widespread starvation conditions caused by Israel’s total blockade, which have killed at least 29 children and elderly people in recent days, according to Palestinian health authorities. Only around 100 trucks of aid have entered Gaza, compared to the 600 per day humanitarian officials say are needed. Médecins Sans Frontières called the aid deliveries “merely a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over”. The aid allowed in is being distributed by the existing UN-led humanitarian system. But the first fortified distribution hubs run by the widely denounced Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are supposed to start functioning before the end of the month. In a press conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added carrying out US President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza to his list of conditions for ending the war, and vowed to continue Israel’s expanded ground offensive until all of the territory is under Israeli control.
Attacks on healthcare up 15%
Attacks against doctors, healthcare workers, hospitals, and clinics in conflict zones surged in 2024. A report released on 19 May by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition recorded 3,623 incidents in 36 countries, up 15% from 2023 and 62% from 2022. The hardest-hit regions included the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Sudan. On average, healthcare came under attack 10 times daily. Over 1,100 health facilities suffered damage or destruction, nearly doubling last year’s figures, primarily from explosive weapons. More than 900 health workers were killed in 27 countries, up 21% from 2023, including more than 400 in Lebanon alone. Nearly 500 health workers were arrested or detained, and 140 were kidnapped. State actors were responsible for over 80% of these incidents. The report calls on states to oppose efforts, such as those by Israel and the United States, to dilute the legal requirements of precaution and proportionality in conflict. It also calls on national prosecutors to investigate and prosecute war crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
US aid cuts fuel protests and disease outbreaks in Kenya
On 20 May, police teargassed hundreds of health workers staging a protest outside the health ministry in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, as a severe funding crisis – made worse by the recent cuts in USAID funding – threatens to reverse the country’s healthcare gains. The protest was prompted by a dispute between the national and county governments over who would be responsible for the continued employment of over 20,000 staff recruited five years ago for the Universal Health Care programme, and who have now been on strike for nearly 100 days, with more threatening to join them. Despite being ranked among the top USAID beneficiaries, healthcare funding in Kenya was already in trouble even before Trump’s return to power. The state initially attempted to put a brave face on the funding cuts, but it is now struggling to cover the shortfall, while health impacts are already visible, in the surge of infectious diseases such as measles.
Trump’s deportation campaign and the courts
A judge in Boston ruled on 21 May that the administration “unquestionably” violated a court order by deporting eight people from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, and Vietnam on a flight earlier in the week reportedly headed to South Sudan. The judge had previously ordered that people being deported to countries other than their home country be given a meaningful opportunity to argue that they could be put in danger. The US Supreme Court also blocked the Trump Administration’s use of an 18th-century law used to rapidly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. Most of those deported had no apparent criminal records. In a separate move, however, the court allowed the Trump administration to strip away the temporary protection status granting 350,000 Venezuelans the right to live and work legally in the US. Judges who have ruled against the administration’s agenda have received threats, and the president has called for some of them to be impeached. Meanwhile, the deportation campaign is still being ramped up, with federal agents detaining people who showed up for appointments at immigration courts across the country on 21 May and the Department of Homeland Security calling for the mobilisation of 20,000 National Guards troops to participate in round-ups.
Climate chaos on the horizon
Europe too dry, Australia too wet: As summer approaches in the northern hemisphere, the climate crisis continues to wreak weather havoc across the globe, inverting normal trends and creating massive uncertainty – particularly for food prices. The worst springtime drought in decades – the driest in a century in the United Kingdom, and with the warmest seas on record – has damaged crops in the normally damp nations of northern Europe. It could worsen the 28.3 billion euros the EU says its farmers lose to climate damage each year. And as for down under, record flooding levels have killed at least four people, numerous livestock, and stranded entire communities in the western region of New South Wales. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the country was "seeing more extreme weather events… occurring more frequently and they're more intense”. Meanwhile, international climate policymaking grows ever more fractious. This week, Ana Toni, CEO of the COP30 climate summit – to be held this November in Brazil – blasted President Trump’s tariff war as hindering efforts to trade green technology.
RFE workers say cuts making jobs “untenable”
Journalists at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have sent a letter of protest to the company’s leadership in Prague for cutting their housing allowances shortly after receiving a $12.5 million budget for April and 5.5 million euros from the EU. In the letter, seen by TNH, the foreign workers employed at the service’s headquarters in Prague said the cuts would make their jobs “untenable”, and that the decision was made “without any prior consultation or warning”. The email was signed by 60 members of the staff. RFE/RL along with Voice of America, both US government funded outlets that are not allowed to broadcast in the country, are having their funding threatened by President Trump and his effort to eliminate waste in government spending. Like more recent upstarts, Russia Today, France24, and TRT World, RFE/RL and VOA were government-funded services broadcast outside the United States and meant to spread Washington’s propaganda around the world, especially during the rise of communism, fascism, and nazism in Europe.
Weekend read
The Lebanon Displacement Diaries
The end of a war is not the end of the story.
A participatory, multimedia journalism project by The New Humanitarian that centres the voices of those uprooted by the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon through the words of 10 displaced people.
And finally…
The Trump versus Cyril show
It was another scripted reality show in the Oval Office this week, this time with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the unlucky contestant. He had requested a meeting with President Trump to debunk the right-wing hysteria over alleged “white genocide”. But instead, when the video rolled, it was clear Trump was out to delight his MAGA base and ambush him. Except it didn’t go exactly as planned. Ramaphosa remained statesmanlike – winning praise at home – while some of the clips, purportedly of murdered white farmers, turned out to be graves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even the South African golfers Trump wanted included in the delegation – and turned to to “whitesplain” what was really going on – broadly represented the South African government’s position that rural killings are about criminality, not race. This White House, despite a globe-spanning intelligence service, seems to prefer instead racist fake farmer social media grifters. After the circus, and behind closed doors, Ramaphosa’s team apparently made more progress in convincing Trump that South Africa’s new land legislation is not revolutionary; that minority politicians are constitutionally protected when they sing old struggle songs of “kill the Boer”; and that South Africa’s struggling economy needs US investment.
