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WHO: Planning Underway to Evacuate Three Gaza Hospitals 

Smoke rises after an explosion on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, southern Israel, 21 November 2023. (EPA)
Smoke rises after an explosion on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, southern Israel, 21 November 2023. (EPA)
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WHO: Planning Underway to Evacuate Three Gaza Hospitals 

Smoke rises after an explosion on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, southern Israel, 21 November 2023. (EPA)
Smoke rises after an explosion on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, southern Israel, 21 November 2023. (EPA)

A World Health Organization spokesperson said on Tuesday that three hospitals in Israeli-besieged Gaza had requested help with evacuating patients and said that planning was underway.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that the three hospitals were Al Shifa, from which a group of babies has already been rescued, Indonesian Hospital and Al Ahli Hospital.

He said such an event was a last resort.

"It's robbing the entire population of the north of the means to seek health (care)," he told a Geneva press briefing.

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Cyprus Leader Becomes First Foreign Dignitary to Visit Lebanon’s New President

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)
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Cyprus Leader Becomes First Foreign Dignitary to Visit Lebanon’s New President

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has become the foreign head of state and first foreign dignitary to pay an official visit to Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun.

Aoun, the former commander of the Lebanese army, was elected Thursday by the Lebanese parliament to fill a more than two-year vacuum in the presidency.

“I wanted to be the first to visit President Aoun and show, not in words but in actions that Cyprus stands by Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” Christodoulides told reporters afterward.

They discussed energy, security, trade and shipping, his office said in a written statement.

Cyprus and Lebanon have had close relations for decades. In recent years the two countries have been involved in intense discussions over border control, as many Syrian refugees living in Lebanon — and an increasing number of Lebanese since the country's major economic crisis began in 2019 — sought to reach Cyprus by sea in smuggler boats.

Cyprus is less than 200 kilometers (130 miles) from the Lebanese capital Beirut and they share maritime borders in waters where undersea natural gas deposits are believed to lie.