6th March 2026

As the world's eyes focus on Iran and the Middle East, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is "still catastrophic" and has seen only a "marginal" improvement since the ceasefire, with worse to come due to the Middle East war, senior World Health Organization officials told reporters yesterday. Due to supply disruptions in the Middle East $6 million worth of medicines is unable to reach desperately needy people in Gaza. After its military strikes on Iran at the weekend Israel closed its borders with Gaza. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said "We need 600 trucks to cross into Gaza every single day but currently it’s not more than between 100 and 150," adding that the border closures had interrupted "good progress" on the number of medical evacuations. "I would like to use this opportunity actually to ask Israel to allow us to take patients [from Gaza] to east Jerusalem and [the] West Bank," Tedros said. Some of the trucks entering Gaza were "commercial" and didn't really help people who couldn't afford the supplies, he said. UN data shows that only 5,200 of the United Nations' aid trucks have been offloaded at the border so far this year.

Loving God forgive us when we forget about people in need because the news cycle has moved on. Forgive that we ignore the impact on war on people and rain down terror on others creating similar horrors and needs. Forgive that women, men and children at grave risk of malnutrition and death continue to suffer in Gaza and that there are restriction on getting supplies through to desperate people. Bless the work of the UN, and all the humanitarian agencies working across Gaza.  Wrap their people in your protectection.  Move among those with power to open borders and ensure that the necessary supplies get to those in need. Loving God, may we not walk by on the other side but care for one another, bind up wounds, and be neighbourly towards others.  In Jesus' name we pray.  Amen.

The Ecuadorean military has seized a 35m-long (115ft) "narco submarine" hidden in a nature reserve near the country's border with Colombia. The vessel was carrying 6,000 gallons (22,700 litres) of fuel and was ready to embark on "a long drug-smuggling voyage", according to the Ecuador's ministry of defence. The Ecuadorean military came under fire  from "armed individuals" during the operation, but managed to seized not only the semi-submersible but also six speedboats, seven outboard motors and dozens of barrels of fuel. The Cayapas–Mataje mangrove forest is located near Ecuador's border with Colombia, on the Pacific Coast. The reserve is dense and difficult to navigate, and contains some of the tallest mangroves in the world.  Ecuador has become a key country through which illicit drugs transit from South America through the Pacific islands to deliver cocaine to the lucrative Australian market, as well as to to the US, Europe.

Loving God, all praise glory, power and majesty

be to you our Heavenly Father.

We praise you that you have given us

the wonderful image of life

with you and the golden city of the new Jerusalem: 

"the river of the water of life,

bright as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

through the middle of the street of the city;

also, on either side of the river,

the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit,

yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”*

Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Amen.

*1 Revelation 22:1-3