The Five
1. Sudan. 15 drone strikes on El Obeid in three weeks, 45 civilians killed. Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council yesterday his office has documented 15 drone strikes on El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, in the space of three weeks. Both RSF and SAF drones have struck markets, schools, fuel stations, water infrastructure, and civilian vehicles. Some residents are selling belongings to finance their escape. For many, exorbitant transport costs and attacks on vehicles along exit routes make leaving impossible. UN News, 3 July
2. Climate. WMO confirms strong El Niño developing rapidly, Germany records 41.7°C. The World Meteorological Organization's monthly Global Seasonal Climate Update, released this week, expresses "high confidence" that strong El Niño conditions will develop rapidly from July to September. Germany hit a national temperature record of 41.7°C last weekend. Drier-than-average conditions are forecast for Central America, the Caribbean, and North and South America. Wetter conditions expected in East Africa's rainy season from September to December. UN News, 3 July
3. West Bank. 2,300 Palestinians displaced in 2026, East Jerusalem demolitions at 37% of total. OCHA's Humanitarian Situation Report for 3 July documents that more than 2,300 Palestinians have been displaced across the West Bank this year due to settler attacks and access restrictions. Demolitions in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods on the "West Bank" side of the Barrier now account for 37% of all lack-of-permit demolitions in East Jerusalem, nearly double the six-year average of 19%. Fourteen structures were demolished during the reporting period. OCHA OPT
4. Gaza. 9,000 chickenpox cases in two weeks, waste management at 85%. OCHA's 3 July situation report flags 9,000 chickenpox cases across 130 health facilities in Gaza in the past two weeks, half of them in Khan Younis. Only 85% of solid waste generated in Gaza is collected. Shelter and NFI stocks remain near-depleted. Emergency repairs completed on 453 partially damaged homes bring the cumulative total to 1,299 rehabilitated units since the start of 2026. Solar lamp distribution to 7,200 households across 26 displacement sites is ongoing. OCHA OPT
5. Venezuela. Response scaling, still no complete assessment of the affected zones. UNHCR reports it is co-leading the emergency shelter response. UNICEF's second shipment from Copenhagen (47 metric tons) reached Venezuela on 30 June. Together the two shipments support around 100,000 people over three months. Rescue operations continue. UNCTAD released the fourth edition of its Hormuz Monitor this week: freight contracts, supply chains, and food systems will take longer to adjust than energy markets after the 100-day disruption. UNHCR | UNICEF USA
The One That Matters Most
El Obeid is the third city, and the pattern is the point.
Volker Türk's briefing to the Human Rights Council yesterday put a specific number on a specific city over a specific timeframe. In the space of three weeks in June, his office documented 15 drone strikes on El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan. Both the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces (former allies who have now been fighting each other for more than three years) have launched drones. The strikes have hit markets, schools, fuel stations, water infrastructure, and civilian vehicles. At least 45 civilians have been killed in that three-week window alone. Türk's quote, which is worth carrying in full: "Some people are selling their belongings to finance their escape from the city. For many, the exorbitant cost of transport and constant attacks on vehicles along exit routes, make leaving impossible."
El Obeid is the third strategic city in Kordofan to face this pattern. Kadugli, in South Kordofan, is where famine has been confirmed and where WFP's two convoys have sat for weeks waiting for permissions that never come. Dilling, also in South Kordofan, is where the IPC's February alert noted conditions were likely similar to Kadugli but could not be formally classified because there was too little access to gather the data. Now El Obeid, in the north of the region, is under the same kind of sustained assault, from the same kind of drone warfare, targeting the same kind of civilian infrastructure. The RSF has been advancing toward the city for weeks. The population there is doing exactly what people in Kadugli did before the siege closed: trying to leave, in a situation where transport is prohibitively expensive and the exit routes are themselves under attack.
The wider Sudan file is where the humanitarian architecture's failure to hold ground is now most visible. Türk was direct in the same briefing yesterday about what he sees developing: "In Sudan, the horrific conflict has expanded and escalated, marked by a sharp increase in the use of drone warfare." His previous briefing in mid-June put the drone strike civilian death toll at more than 1,000 for the first five months of 2026. That figure was the aggregate for the country. The El Obeid figure (15 strikes and 45 deaths in three weeks) is the granular sub-picture, and it shows the pace of the drone campaign is not slowing. It is intensifying, and it is concentrating on specific cities in ways that suggest deliberate strategic targeting rather than incidental civilian harm.
What matters for the humanitarian response is the sequence. First, drone strikes on civilian infrastructure (water, fuel, markets) degrade the ability of the population to remain. Second, attacks on vehicles along exit routes make leaving prohibitively expensive and dangerous. Third, siege conditions consolidate, humanitarian access collapses, and the transition to famine begins. Kadugli went through this sequence. El Fasher, which we have been covering all year, went through this sequence. The Fact-Finding Mission's February report on El Fasher found "the hallmarks of genocide." What Türk is now flagging is that the sequence is being applied to El Obeid, and the international response architecture has not yet developed any credible instrument for interrupting it.
The Council file on Sudan will move again this month. The Adré crossing extension announced Monday (through 30 September) is genuine good news, and it will allow continued cross-border aid delivery from Chad. It does not, however, address what is happening in Kordofan. The Sudanese government's control does not extend to the areas the RSF is advancing on, and the RSF has consistently obstructed humanitarian access to areas it controls or contests. WFP's two Kadugli convoys remain stalled. The 2026 humanitarian appeal for Sudan is 16% funded. Nearly 19.5 million Sudanese face crisis levels of hunger. 4.2 million projected acute malnutrition cases in 2026. The system is being asked to respond to a genocide-adjacent conflict at scale, and it is doing so with less than one-fifth of what its own analysts say is required. The El Obeid drone strikes are what this looks like in concrete terms: a city being systematically degraded, a population unable to leave, and a humanitarian architecture that has documentary capacity but no operational instruments to prevent what is happening.
The question the Türk briefing implicitly poses is one the Council has not answered for two years: what specifically changes when the OHCHR documents this pattern in the third Kordofan capital? The mid-June briefing on the country-wide drone figure was covered in the Council record. Yesterday's briefing on El Obeid will be too. The record will be complete. The response, so far, is not.
Watching Kordofan through the weekend: El Obeid could deteriorate quickly. The El Niño confirmation from WMO is a slower-burning file but one that will shape the second half of the year. Back Tuesday.
End of a long week. Have a good weekend.
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