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humanitarian aid
$2 Billion Per Day Spent by US on Iran War Could Have Saved 87 Million Lives, Says UN Humanitarian Chief
A UN official said a proposal to provide food, water, medicine, and shelter to tens of millions of those facing war and poverty could have been funded “in less than a fortnight of this reckless war.”
Apr 21, 2026
US President Donald Trump’s war in Iran is costing nearly $2 billion per day, according to a Harvard analysis based on estimates from the Pentagon. The head of the United Nations’ humanitarian agency said the money could instead be used to save more than 87 million lives around the world.
Tom Fletcher, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spoke at Chatham House on Monday about a “cataclysmic” funding crisis for the UN, in large part due to the termination of billions of dollars in funding from the US and other major powers such as the UK. Fletcher said his agency has seen its budget cut by around 50%.
"We're already overstretched, underresourced, and literally under attack," Fletcher said, citing the more than 1,000 humanitarians who have been killed in conflicts around the world over the past three years.
The Iran war, launched at the end of February by the US and Israel, Fletcher said, has stretched UN budgets even further, both by causing chaos within Iran and Lebanon—where more than 5,000 people in total have been killed, including thousands of civilians, and more than 4 million displaced collectively—but also by creating economic upheaval that has exacerbated crises elsewhere.
"You have the [Strait] of Hormuz—fuel prices up 20%, food prices up almost 20%, our humanitarian convoys blocked," Fletcher said. "We've had to take those convoys by air and by land. And the impact, which I think we'll be feeling for years, of those price rises on Sub-Saharan and East Africa, pushing way more people into poverty."
Fletcher said that just a fraction of what the US has spent waging the war could have been used to provide a full year of funding for a plan he laid out in January to provide lifesaving food, water, medicine, and shelter to those in dozens of countries facing war and poverty.
“For every day of this conflict, $2 billion is being spent. My entire target for a hyper-prioritized plan to save 87 million lives is $23 billion," he said. "We could have funded that in less than a fortnight of this reckless war. Now, of course, we cannot.”
Beyond the financial toll, he said, US actions may have done irreparable damage to the authority of international humanitarian law and to UN bodies tasked with enforcing it.
He noted the dramatic increase in the number of humanitarian workers killed around the world over the past three years. According to a UN report earlier this month, of the more than 1,010 of them who were killed in the line of duty, over half were killed during Israel's genocide in Gaza and escalating attacks in the West Bank.
"A thousand dead humanitarians in three years," Fletcher said. "When did that become normal?"
He called out the UN Security Council, where the US is one of the permanent members with veto power, for its weak responses to the killing of humanitarians and other flagrant violations of the laws of war.
"Don't just give us a generic statement where you say humanitarian workers should be protected," he said. "Make the phone call, call out the people killing us, stop arming those who are doing it."
He said "big powers" view geopolitics in a highly "transactional" way and do not use the Security Council as a mechanism for defending international humanitarian law.
"I wouldn't have thought I'd need to say that a couple of years ago, that the Security Council should be defending international humanitarian law, and yet here we are," he said.
He said that Trump’s recent violent rhetoric toward Iran—which again verged into outright genocidal territory over the weekend when he pledged to “blow up the entire country” with overwhelming attacks on civilian infrastructure—has only further corroded international law.
“The idea that suddenly it’s okay to say, ‘We’re going to blow stuff up,’ ‘We’re going to bomb you back to the Stone Age,’ ‘We’re going to destroy your civilization,’ that kind of language is really dangerous,” Fletcher said. “It gives more freedom to all the other wannabe autocrats around the world to use that sort of language.”
But he said the aggression of the US and its allies has also made the world more warlike and less "generous," leading countries to put more money into defense that could otherwise go toward alleviating global suffering.
"Whether you're making the cuts [to UN funding] for ideological reasons or because you're too busy bombing someone else or because now you feel more insecure at home and so you have to invest more of your money in defense and less in generosity," he said, "all of that ultimately has an impact on the over 300 million people that we're here to serve."
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With Aid Blocked and 'At Least 2 Children a Day' Killed or Maimed, NGOs Say Trump's Gaza Ceasefire Is Failing
"This is not peace for children in Gaza," said one humanitarian leader. "The ceasefire agreement has not translated into meaningful protection for children or created conditions for recovery."
Apr 09, 2026
Five leading humanitarian organizations that have spent two-and-a-half years advocating for Palestinians suffering under Israel's US-backed onslaught in Gaza released an analysis Thursday of the conditions on the ground six months into a so-called "ceasefire," and their message was clear: the Trump administration's 20-point peace plan is "failing" to end the devastation of the exclave.
The Danish Refugee Council, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International, and Save the Children led the assessment that's detailed in the groups' "Humanitarian Scorecard," released exactly six months after the truce was called.
As Common Dreams has reported, Israeli strikes in Gaza did not halt after the ceasefire agreement was reached in October, and at least 700 Palestinians have been killed in the past six months, including more than 180 children.
“At least two children a day have been killed or injured in the six months since the ceasefire for Gaza was agreed,” said Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing. "This is not peace for children in Gaza. The ceasefire agreement has not translated into meaningful protection for children or created conditions for recovery."
Alarmingly, despite the continuation of Israeli attacks, the groups found that the category of "ceasefire and civilian protection" was the area in which the truce agreement has been closest to success. The scorecard rated civilian protection two points out of four and said it is currently in a "fragile" but not "failing" state. While attacks have continued, the groups said, "sustained bombardment" has halted.
The other three areas the scorecard rated—humanitarian aid access, reconstruction and economic development, and freedom of movement of return—are all "failing" to be implemented under the ceasefire deal that President Donald Trump said would begin a "new day" in Gaza.
Israel and the "Board of Peace" Trump established have especially failed to ensure access to humanitarian aid, with the scorecard rating that category zero out of 10 points.
There are still fewer than 100 aid trucks delivering aid each day to a population that was almost entirely cut off from relief for two years, causing more than 360 people, including at least 130 children, to starve to death before the ceasefire deal was reached. The 20-point peace plan had indicated there should be at least 600 aid trucks entering Gaza daily and that border crossings would be reopened, but the Rafah and Jordan crossings are still "effectively closed," and only a Kerem Shalom crossing is open for aid.
"Even [the ceasefire's] humanitarian provisions—the most straightforward to implement—remain obstructed," said Ashing. "We are ready to scale up and support the people of Gaza, but we must be allowed to do our jobs.”
Israel is still restricting deliveries of what it calls "dual-use" materials that the Israeli government claims could be used as weapons; the list of banned items has included scissors in medical kits, anesthetics, shelter supplies, cancer medicines, and maternity kits. Fuel is also still "severely restricted," the scorecard reads.
“Six months into the so-called ceasefire in Gaza, we are seeing a continuation of the designed deprivation that we saw throughout the hostilities,” said Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk. “Palestinians are experiencing severe malnutrition and preventable deaths every day because many cannot reliably access basic food or services. Both the terms of the ceasefire deal and the core tenets of international humanitarian law require that humanitarian goods enter Gaza, and that humanitarians can do their jobs to save lives. The deal signed last year rightly committed to this—it is time to deliver on those commitments.”
With Israel allowing "only a handful of traders to import supplies and goods" and requiring "exorbitant 'coordination fees' for every truck," families in Gaza are also facing "exceedingly high prices on vital goods and supplies," the scorecard reads. Food items are anywhere from 3% to 233% more expensive than they were before Israel began attacking Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
The 20-point plan also pledged to redevelop Gaza "for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough," with "a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza" being created by a panel of experts "who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” A special economic zone (SEZ) with preferred tariff and access rates would also be established.
Six months later, the SEZ has yet to be created, and no formal development plan has been convened, the humanitarian groups found.
The World Bank created a new Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) called the Gaza Reconstruction and Development (GRAD) fund in coordination with the Board of Peace, but its role is only as a limited trustee, with no responsibility for how funds are spent," reads the scorecard.
The category of freedom of movement was rated one out of six points, with credit given for the fact that some Palestinians have been able to reenter Gaza with the limited reopening of the Rafah crossing in recent weeks.
Other than that, "most of the population" is still displaced after 90% of Gaza residents were forced to flee their homes, and most are unable to leave or return to Gaza. Returns are not permitted at all beyond the Yellow Line marking the Israeli "buffer zone" established by the ceasefire, and there is also a "major backlog of people" awaiting medical evacuations, with some people dying while they wait for care.
“Six months into the ceasefire, Palestinians in Gaza are still facing a daily struggle to survive. President Trump promised to lead an extraordinary recovery and declared a ‘new day’ for Gaza. Instead, his plan for peace is stalling and his attention has turned away from the crisis,” said Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman.
"Palestinians are still experiencing more of the same: going to bed hungry in flooded tents, facing long lines for clean water, and succumbing to diseases and injuries without a healthcare system or basic medical supplies," said Maxman. "All while the government of Israel drops bombs and cuts off vital, lifesaving assistance with US support. We cannot look away—Palestinians in Gaza need our support and pressure on our leaders to deliver on the promise of peace now more than ever.”
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What I Saw in Cuba? Resilience
What I witnessed over those days was not the Cuba of Western propaganda. It was a country enduring a 66-year siege, and a people who, against all odds, continue to build, create, and care for one another.
Mar 28, 2026
I traveled to Cuba this month. As a Cuban American, that sentence carries the weight of longing born of an estrangement from my roots. For much of my life, Cuba existed as a distant story, a place I knew only through descriptions from my father.
I was there as part of an international solidarity convoy; over 500 representatives from more than 30 countries, united by a simple conviction: No country has the right to strangle another simply because it chose a different path. I cannot stand by while the island of my family’s heritage is suffocated.
What I witnessed over those days was not the Cuba of Western propaganda. It was a country enduring a 66-year siege, and a people who, against all odds, continue to build, create, and care for one another.
A Public Health System Under Siege
One of the most profound visits was to a neighborhood polyclinic in Havana. These clinics are the backbone of Cuba’s public health system. Doctors live on the second floor, above where they work. They know every patient in their community by name. They treat physical and psychological health alike, and they embody a model of care that prioritizes people over profit.
I saw a people who are already free—free to define their own destiny, even under the weight of a siege designed to break them.
But the doctors I met face heartbreaking constraints. They are highly trained professionals who know exactly what their patients need, and they know those treatments exist. Due to the US embargo, they cannot access them. Imagine living every day with the skill to heal and being blocked by a political and economic siege.
We brought what we could: 6,300 pounds of medical supplies delivered by our delegation, including neonatal equipment, analgesics, catheters, and other critical materials, valued at $433,000 and more still in unquantifiable amounts stuffed into carry-on and personal bags, sacrificing space for our own clothing and toiletries. Cuban doctors told us about nights when the power goes out, and medical students rush to respirators, manually pumping air for hours until electricity is restored. They save lives with their bare hands.
Community and Creativity in the Face of Scarcity
Everywhere we went, I saw people organizing to survive. In a central Havana neighborhood, we helped refurbish a crumbling playground. We brought paint and new swings. A local man who maintains the park offered to take the swings down each night so they wouldn’t be taken, then put them back up each morning for the children. That kind of mutual care was everywhere.
We met an artist named Lázaro, who collects garbage and old newspapers to create recycled art. He teaches neighborhood kids to do the same. His studio walls are covered in vibrant works that double as expressions of resistance and creativity.
On another day, we set up a table outside Lázaro’s studio with construction paper, markers, and glue. Children from the neighborhood gathered to write letters to pen pals in Singapore. I translated letters from English to Spanish, helping each child respond in Spanish and illustrate their replies. Parents played drums and danced while the kids painted and wrote. It was a profound moment of cross-border connection—kids building relationships through art and translation, across continents, across the blockade.
For Cuban Americans, there is something like a spiritual cost that is paid for quietly going along with the status quo in the face of the many injustices we have grown up with for decades, which seem to us to have intensified in these recent years. But the children I saw in Havana had their spirit intact.
The Human Cost of the Embargo
The blockade is not an abstraction. Poverty is real. I gave what I could, but as individuals, we cannot meet that scale of need brought upon by a systemic crisis created by US policy.
I came back with a deeper sense of what solidarity looks like: showing up, listening, sharing what we can, and staying connected to the work.
Rolling blackouts on the island are the result of a strategy of siege warfare intensified in January. Cuba has gone months without fuel imports due to sanctions and naval pressure aimed at stopping oil shipments to the island. Power plants cannot run consistently. Hospitals cannot perform necessary surgeries. Water pumping infrastructure fails. This is not a natural disaster. It is man-made violence; it is a silent war.
And yet, the Cuban people do not wait for rescue. They organize. They adapt. They invent.
Solidarity and a Call to Action
As a Cuban American, I have heard all my life that Cuba is a country ruled by capricious autocrats. That the Cuban people are waiting to be liberated. That their strangulation is meant to help them. But standing on that island, talking to doctors and artists and children and families, I saw something else entirely. I saw a people who are already free—free to define their own destiny, even under the weight of a siege designed to break them.
Cuba is open to dialogue and investment with respect for its sovereignty. But the US continues to enforce a policy that even much of the world condemns. Year after year, the United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to end the embargo. Year after year, the US ignores it.
I came back with a deeper sense of what solidarity looks like: showing up, listening, sharing what we can, and staying connected to the work. But solidarity cannot end after a single delegation. We need to break the siege. We need to end this decades-long economic warfare.
Cubans have a right to self-governance. They have a right to medicine, to electricity, to water, to dignity. My father chose to leave Cuba in the face of poverty brought on by a cruel sanctions regime. I chose to return for the same reason.
Let Cuba live.
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