Khalid Mishain, from the Youth Citizens Observers Network, says cuts to humanitarian funding are deepening Sudan’s crisis, with famine spreading, aid groups pulling back, and hunger set to worsen without immediate action.
Published On 24 Dec 202524 Dec 2025
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Dec. 22 (UPI) — Colorado lawmakers have called on President Donald Trump to reverse a recent decision denying state disaster aid requests in the wake of “life-threatening flooding and historic wildfires.”
In a statement Sunday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced Trump had rejected the state’s requests for help and accused the president of playing “political games.” He said the state would be appealing the decision.
“Coloradans impacted by the Elk and Lee fires and the flooding in Southwestern Colorado deserve better than the political games President Trump is playing,” Polis said.
“I call on the president’s better angels, and urge him to reconsider these requests. This is about the Coloradans who need this support, and we won’t stop fighting for them to get what they deserve,” the Democratic governor added.
Polis declared a disaster emergency on Aug. 3, for the Elk Fire and added the Lee Fire three days later. He filed an executive order by the end of August as the state revealed initial damage estimates from the fires and mudslides totaled more than $27 million.
In October, Polis declared a disaster emergency to unlock $6 million in state funding for flood response and recovery in Western Colorado.
Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet said, “Trump’s decision to deny Colorado’s request for critical federal assistance is unacceptable.”
“Communities in Western Colorado are in serious need of help after the life-threatening flooding and historic wildfires earlier this year,” Bennet added. “Trump continues to use Coloradans for political games; it is malicious and obscene.”
While a president can tap additional federal assistance with a major disaster under the Stafford Act, the Trump administration has recently denied some states’ requests for aid as it works to downsize the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The White House said Monday, “there is no politicization to the president’s decisions on disaster relief.” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson explained Trump’s decision, adding that the administration sent two firefighting planes to Colorado to help fight the fires.
“The president responds to each request for federal assistance under the Stafford Act with great care and consideration,” Jackson said, “ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has warned that babies and children in the Gaza Strip are dying from harsh winter weather, calling on Israel to ease its aid blockade as the military continues to violate the ceasefire and press on with its genocidal war.
Citing the death of a 29-day-old premature baby, Said Asad Abedin, from severe hypothermia in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, MSF said on Friday that winter storms “combined with the already dire living conditions [are] increasing health risks”.
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The death toll from extreme weather stood at 13 as of Thursday, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Another two-week-old baby, Mohammed Khalil Abu al-Khair, froze to death without access to proper shelter or clothing earlier this week.
Ahmed al-Farra, head of the maternity paediatric department at Nasser Medical Complex, said in a video update that “hypothermia is very dangerous” for babies. “If nothing is offered for these families in the tents, for warming, for mobile homes, for caravans, unfortunately, we will see more and more” deaths, al-Farra said.
Children are “losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival,” Bilal Abu Saada, a nursing team supervisor at Nasser Hospital, told MSF. “Babies are arriving to the hospital cold, with near-death vital signs.”
In addition to the growing number of deaths, MSF said its staff has recorded high rates of respiratory infections that it expects to increase throughout the winter, posing a particular danger to children under five.
“As Gaza is battered by heavy rains and storms, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to struggle in flooded and broken makeshift tents,” the organisation added. “MSF calls on Israeli authorities to urgently allow a massive scale up of aid into the Strip.”
Palestinian news agency Wafa, meanwhile, reported that Israeli forces demolished buildings, carried out artillery shelling and shot guns in areas east of Gaza City on Saturday morning, with more gunfire reported east of Khan Younis.
On Friday, an Israeli strike on a shelter for displaced Palestinians killed at least six people. The Israeli military claimed to be firing on “suspects”.
Graphic videos from the scene showed body parts and terrified civilians trying to carry wounded people out of danger.
Military vehicles also descended upon the town of az-Zawiya, located west of Salfit in the occupied West Bank, where forces severely beat and injured a number of citizens and stormed homes, the agency said.
Heavy rain, high winds and freezing temperatures have battered Gaza in recent weeks, flooding or blowing away more than 53,000 tents that have served as makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians.
With huge swaths of buildings and infrastructure destroyed, streets are quick to flood and sewage overflows. Displaced families have sought refuge in the shells of partially fallen-down buildings despite the risk of collapse, with 13 buildings caving in across Gaza last week.
The winter weather and Israel’s blocking of vital aid and mobile homes for shelter have proven deadly for children and babies.
Late in the evening of December 13, Eman Abu al-Khair, a 34-year-old displaced Palestinian living in al-Mawasi west of Khan Younis, found her sleeping baby Mohammed “cold as ice”, his hands and feet frozen and “his face stiff and yellowish”, she told Al Jazeera.
She and her husband couldn’t find transportation to get to hospital, and intense rain made it impossible to make the trek by foot.
After rushing Mohammed by animal-drawn cart to Red Crescent Hospital in Khan Younis at dawn, he was admitted to intensive care with a blue face and convulsions. He died two days later.
“I can still hear his tiny cries in my ears,” Eman said. “I sleep and drift off, unable to believe that his crying and waking me at night will never happen again.”
Mohammed “had no medical problems,” she added. “His tiny body simply couldn’t withstand the extreme cold inside the tents.”
Since the October 10 ceasefire took effect, Israel has continued to block the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip despite calls from a host of United Nations agencies, international organisations and other states for it to stop.
The UN has said that Israel has prevented tents and blankets from reaching Palestinians, even as an estimated 55,000 families have seen their belongings and shelters damaged or destroyed in the storm.
Dozens of child-friendly spaces have also been damaged, affecting 30,000 children, according to the UN.
Natasha Hall, a senior advocate for Refugees International, told Al Jazeera that aid is entering Gaza in a “trickle” in part due to its opaque list of “controlled dual-use items” that has included nappies, bandages, tools, tents and other essentials.
“It’s unclear how those could be used as weapons or any kind of dual use,” Hall said.
Winter storms are worsening conditions for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, as aid agencies warn that Israeli restrictions are preventing lifesaving shelter assistance from reaching people across the besieged enclave.
The United Nations has said it has tents, blankets and other essential supplies ready to enter Gaza, but that Israeli authorities continue to block or restrict access through border crossings.
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In Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp, the roof of a war-damaged family home collapsed during the storm, rescue workers said on Wednesday. Six Palestinians, including two children, were pulled alive from the rubble.
It comes after Gaza’s Ministry of Health said a two-week-old Palestinian infant froze to death, highlighting the risks faced by young and elderly people living in inadequate shelters.
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the storms had damaged or destroyed shelters and personal belongings across the territory.
“The disruption has affected approximately 30,000 children across Gaza. Urgent repairs are needed to ensure these activities can resume without delay,” Farhan Haq said.
The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza added in a statement that “what we are experiencing now in the Gaza Strip is a true humanitarian catastrophe”.
The worsening humanitarian situation comes as Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani held talks in Washington, DC, with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on efforts to stabilise the tenuous ceasefire in Gaza.
According to Qatari officials, the talks focused on Qatar’s role as a mediator, the urgent need for aid to enter Gaza, and moving negotiations towards the second stage of a US-backed plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, said Sheikh Mohammed stressed that humanitarian assistance must be allowed into Gaza “unconditionally”.
“He said aid has to be taken into Gaza unconditionally, clearly making reference to the fact that a number of aid agencies have said that Israel is blocking the access to aid for millions of people in Gaza,” Fisher said.
The Qatari prime minister also discussed the possibility of an international stabilisation force to be deployed in Gaza after the war, saying such a force should act impartially.
“There has been a lot of talk in the US over the past couple of weeks about how this force would work towards the disarmament of Hamas,” Fisher said.
Sheikh Mohammed also called for swift progress towards the second phase of the ceasefire agreement.
“He said that stage two of the ceasefire deal has to be moved to pretty quickly,” Fisher said, adding that US officials were hoping to announce early in the new year which countries would contribute troops to a stabilisation force.
Meanwhile, violence continued in Gaza despite the ceasefire, with at least 11 Palestinians wounded in Israeli attacks in central Gaza City, according to medical sources.
The Israeli army said it is investigating after a mortar shell fired near Gaza’s so-called yellow line “missed its target”.
Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza reported Israeli artillery shelling east of the southern city of Khan Younis. Medical sources said Israeli gunfire also wounded two people in the Tuffah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City.
In the occupied West Bank, where Israeli military and settler attacks have escalated in recent days, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli troops shot and wounded a man in his 20s in the foot in Qalqilya. He was taken to hospital and is reported to be in stable condition.
Since October 2023, at least 70,668 Palestinians have been killed and 171,152 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities. In Israel, 1,139 people were killed during the Hamas-led October 7 attack, and more than 200 others were taken captive.
Winter cold ‘becomes lethal’ as Israel restricts entry of tents, blankets and other shelter supplies to ravaged enclave.
A Palestinian infant has frozen to death in the Gaza Strip, local authorities say, as Israel continues to restrict the entry of shelter supplies and other humanitarian aid to the enclave despite the harsh winter conditions there.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Tuesday that the two-week-old baby, Mohammed Khalil Abu al-Khair, died a day earlier after seeking treatment for severe hypothermia, brought on by the extreme cold gripping Gaza.
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Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum noted that the child’s death comes as basic protections in Gaza have been “systematically dismantled” due to Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory.
“Families are living in tents on wet ground without heating, electricity or sufficient clothing,” Abu Azzoum said. “When food, fuel, shelter and aid are banned, cold absolutely becomes lethal.”
Israel’s two-year war has decimated more than 80 percent of the structures across Gaza, forcing hundreds of thousands of families to take refuge in flimsy tents or overcrowded makeshift shelters.
A huge storm that recently hit the Strip killed at least 11 people as torrential rains and fierce winds flooded tents and caused damaged buildings to collapse.
“We try to dry the children’s clothes over the fire,” Umm Mohammed Assaliya, a displaced Palestinian mother, told Al Jazeera from Gaza City.
“There are no spare clothes for them. I am exhausted. The tent we were given cannot withstand winter conditions. We need blankets,” she said.
Humanitarian groups have urged Israel to allow unimpeded deliveries of aid to Gaza.
But the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which the UN says is best suited to distribute supplies in the territory, says the Israeli government has blocked it from bringing aid directly into Gaza.
“People have reportedly died due to the collapse of damaged buildings where families were sheltering. Children have reportedly died from exposure to the cold,” UNRWA said in a social media post on Tuesday.
“This must stop. Aid must be allowed in at scale, now.”
Meanwhile, Hamas has condemned Israel for its repeated violations of a ceasefire deal that came into effect in October.
At least 393 Palestinians have been killed and 1,074 others wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the first full day of the ceasefire on October 11, according to the latest figures from the enclave’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military also killed a senior Hamas leader, Raed Saad, in a targeted attack on a vehicle in western Gaza City on Saturday, further straining the tenuous truce.
On Tuesday, Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad accused Israel of “manipulating” the text of the US-brokered agreement.
“We want to make it absolutely clear: the ceasefire agreement is straightforward, detailed, and unambiguous. However, it’s evident that the Israeli occupation has distorted the text, manipulating and violating every single article,” Hamad said.
“Since day one, Hamas has fully abided by the agreement and honoured its commitments. In contrast, Israel has deliberately committed several systematic and preplanned breaches.”
Dec. 12 (UPI) — European Union member states have approved nearly $2.7 billion in funding for Ukraine as part of a plan to bolster the war-besieged nation’s recovery, reconstruction and modernization.
The disbursement of the funds was approved Thursday by the European Council, the 27-member block’s top political steering body, to boost Ukraine’s macro-financial stability and support the functioning of its public administration, the council said in a statement.
“I am grateful to the EU for the steadfast support,” Sergii Marchenko, Ukraine’s minister of finance, said in a statement.
“The [Ukraine-EU] partnership ensures our financial stability today and lays the foundation for Ukraine’s shared future in the EU.”
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance, $2.4 billion of the funds will be provided as loans, with the remainder in grants.
It is the sixth regular disbursement of funds from the Ukraine Facility, the EU’s main framework for sustaining Ukraine’s economy, governance and reconstruction amid its defense against Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a statement that this disbursement is “essential” for Ukraine to maintain its “financial resilience” during the war, which began with Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
“We are grateful to our European partners for their consistent support and for continuing the program,” she said.
The council agreed to release the funds as Ukraine successfully completed the eight steps required for the disbursement as well as an outstanding step from the fourth disbursement, according to the council.
The reforms were implemented before the end of the third quarter in the areas of public finance management, the judiciary, the business environment, the banking sector, environmental protection and others, according to the finance ministry.
“The government of Ukraine is working to further improve compliance with Ukraine Facility conditions in the upcoming reporting period,” Svyrydenko added.
The announcement comes a little over a month after the EU approved the fifth disbursement in early November.
“This quick consecutive provision of funds mirrors Ukraine’s speed and commitment to implement reforms aligned with the country’s EU accession goals,” the council said.
The Ukraine Facility entered into force March 1, 2024, to provide Ukraine with up to more than $58 billion in grants and loans through 2027.
To date, Ukraine has received more than $28.6 billion under the program, with $9.7 billion having been received this year alone, according to the Ministry of Finance.
“This is stable and predictable financial support that enables us to maintain budget liquidity and ensure social payments,” Marchenko added in a separate statement.
“Thanks to this support, Ukraine remains on the path of reforms and is moving closer to EU membership.”
The Ukraine Facility is closely linked to advancing the so-called Ukraine Plan that outlines Kyiv’s strategy not only for recovery, reconstruction and modernization but also for implementing reforms to achieve its goal of becoming the 28th member of the EU.
The announcement coincided with the EU and Ukraine agreeing on a 10-point plan on implementing reforms to ensure Kyiv aligns with the bloc and eventually becoming a member.
The EU is Ukraine’s largest backer during its war against Russia, giving it about $80.2 billion since the war began, of which $30.9 billion was given this year.