A Red Cross worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) disinfects a coffin outside the house of a man who died of Ebola before retrieving his body, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain a new Ebola outbreak involving the Bundibugyo strain, in Quartier Shuni 1, a residential sector in Mongbwalu, Djugu Territory of Ituri province, Democratic Republic of Congo, on May 24, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen after the global hunger monitor, in Gaza City, August 28, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the U.S.A. and the WHO,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general, World Health Organization (WHO), said in a statement issued on Monday following an announcement by President Donald Trump that the U.S. would exit the WHO. Mr. Trump cited the global health agency’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises as a reason for the exit.

Stating that American institutions have both contributed to and benefited from membership in the WHO, the global health agency expressed its regret over the announcement and said that the U.S. should reconsider its decision for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe.

Founded in 1948, the WHO is the United Nations agency that connects nations, partners, and people to promote health. According to the WHO, the organisation gets its funding from two main sources – Member States paying their assessed contributions (countries’ membership dues), and voluntary contributions from Member States and other partners. 

Assessed contributions are a percentage of a country’s gross domestic product (the percentage is agreed by the United Nations General Assembly). Member States approve them every two years at the World Health Assembly. They cover less than 20% of the total budget.

The remainder of the WHO’s financing is in the form of voluntary contributions, largely from Member States as well as from other United Nations bodies, intergovernmental organisations, philanthropic foundations, the private sector, and other sources. 

From 2020 to 2021, Germany was the largest donor to the WHO, contributing over one billion U.S. dollars. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed the second highest amount at 751 million U.S. dollars, the United States contributed the third highest amount of funding at 693 million U.S. dollars. Funding for the WHO from 2020 to 2021 includes increased efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as funding from the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), according to research data experts.

Meanwhile, in his statement on Monday, Dr. Ghebreyesu said that the United States has been a founding member of the WHO in 1948 and has participated in shaping and governing the WHO’s work ever since, alongside 193 other member states, including through its active participation in the world health assembly and executive board. For over seven decades, the WHO and the U.S.A. have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats.

“Working together the world has seen the end of smallpox and brought polio to the brink of eradication,’’ it added stating that with the participation of the United States and other Member States, the WHO has over the past seven years implemented the largest set of reforms in its history, to transform our accountability, cost-effectiveness, and impact in countries.

India is also among the top ten global contributors of core funding to the WHO and has committed to give more than $300 million for the organisation’s core programme of work from 2025 to 2028. The biggest chunk of $250 million will be spent on the Centre of Excellence for Traditional Medicine.

In India, the WHO has extended support in major health initiatives including intensified pulse polio immunisation, mission indradhanush etc. and worked closely during the COVID pandemic in terms of response and vaccination. 

Sudarshan Jain, secretary general, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance speaking about the U.S. withdrawal said, “The relationship between India and the U.S. has been growing from strength to strength over the years. Healthcare security and affordability are key priorities for the new Trump administration. India and the U.S. have an opportunity to collaborate in these areas to advance the healthcare agenda.’’

A new round of Israeli airstrikes in Yemen on Thursday (December 26, 2024) targeted the Houthi rebel-held capital and multiple ports, while the World Health Organization’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the bombardment occurred nearby as he prepared to board a flight in Sanaa, with a crew member injured.

“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the social media platform X.

He added that he and U.N. colleagues were safe. “We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave,” he said, without mentioning the source of the bombardment. U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay later said the injured person was with the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service.

At least three people were later reported killed and dozens injured in the airport strike. The U.N. team members left the airport and were “safe and sound” in Sanaa while the injured crew member was being treated at a hospital, she said.

Mr. Tremblay said the damage assessment would be made on Friday (December 27, 2024) morning to see whether WHO chief and the U.N. team can leave Yemen.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the escalation in attacks between Yemen and Israel and described Thursday’s (December 26, 2024) attacks as “especially alarming,” Mr. Tremblay said.

Israel’s army later told The Associated Press it wasn’t aware that the WHO chief or delegation was at the location in Yemen.

The Israeli strikes followed several days of Houthi launches setting off sirens in Israel. The Israeli military in a statement said it attacked infrastructure used by the Iran-backed Houthis at the international airport in Sanaa and ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif and Ras Qantib, along with power stations, asserting they were used to smuggle in Iranian weapons and for the entry of senior Iranian officials.

Israel’s military added it had “capabilities to strike very far from Israel’s territory — precisely, powerfully, and repetitively.”

The strikes, carried out over 1,000 miles from Jerusalem, came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad’s regime and others learned” as his military has battled those more powerful proxies of Iran.

The Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah reported multiple deaths and showed broken windows, collapsed ceilings and a bloodstained floor and vehicle. Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes. The U.S. military also has targeted the Houthis in recent days.

The U.N. has said the targeted ports are important entryways for humanitarian aid for Yemen, the poorest Arab nation that plunged into a civil war in 2014.

Over the weekend, 16 people were wounded when a Houthi missile hit a playground in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, while other missiles and drones have been shot down. Last week, Israeli jets struck Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people, calling it a response to previous Houthi attacks. The Houthis also have been targeting shipping on the Red Sea corridor, calling it solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The U.N. Security Council has an emergency meeting Monday (December 30, 2024) in response to an Israeli request that it condemn the Houthi attacks and Iran for supplying them weapons.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in Gaza overnight, the territory’s Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said all were militants posing as reporters.

The strike hit a car outside Al-Awda Hospital in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The journalists were working for local news outlet Al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Islamic Jihad is a smaller and more extreme ally of Hamas and took part in the October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel that ignited the war. Israel’s military identified four of the men as combat propagandists and said that intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad operatives found by soldiers in Gaza, had confirmed that all five were affiliated with the group.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups operate political, media and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.

Associated Press footage showed the incinerated shell of a van, with press markings visible on the back doors. Sobbing young men attended the funeral. The bodies were wrapped in shrouds, with blue press vests draped over them.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 130 Palestinian reporters have been killed since the start of the war. Israel hasn’t allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza except on military embeds.

Israel has banned the pan-Arab Al Jazeera network and accused six of its Gaza reporters of being militants. The Qatar-based broadcaster denies the allegations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its war coverage, which has focused heavily on civilian casualties from Israeli military operations.

Separately, Israel’s military said a 35-year-old reserve soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza. A total of 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It says more than half the fatalities have been women and children, but doesn’t say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The offensive has caused widespread destruction and hunger and driven around 90% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid camps along the coast, with little protection from the cold, wet winter.

Also Thursday (December 26, 2024), people mourned eight Palestinians killed by Israeli military operations in and around Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday (December 24, 2024), according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it opened fire after militants attacked soldiers, and it was aware of uninvolved civilians who were harmed in the raid.