Health workers, ambulances and hospitals have been attacked in recent days while trying to save survivors in Gaza, according to UN relief chief Tom Fletcher.
In a social media post on Monday, Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said he was continuing to receive horrific reports from Gaza of such attacks and called for efforts to ensure that hospitals and medics are not targeted.
At a daily briefing on Monday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that in southern Gaza on Sunday, several casualties were reported after the surgical department of Nasser Medical Complex was hit and caught fire. In Rafah, ambulances were reportedly hit in the Tal Al Sultan refugee camp, resulting in several casualties.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said four of its ambulances were targeted, as well as 10 team members carrying out humanitarian work. Communication with the team was completely lost for 30 hours, and their fate remains unknown, the spokesman added.
As hostilities continue across Gaza, the OCHA and its partners called for the entry of additional emergency medical teams into Gaza to help health workers who are described as "exhausted and, of course, overwhelmed" by Dujarric.
Israeli authorities on Sunday issued a new evacuation order in Rafah, covering around two percent of the Strip and affecting five neighborhoods. With the latest directive, the overall area designated for evacuation over the past week covers an estimated 14 percent of the Gaza Strip, Dujarric said.
The spokesman also indicated that according to available information, "strikes hitting a UN compound in Deir Al Balah on 19 March were caused by an Israeli tank." The strikes left one UN staffer dead and six others severely injured.
As a result of the escalating attacks in Gaza, UN aid will be forced to "reduce the Organization's footprint in Gaza, even as humanitarian needs soar," according to Dujarric's statement.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) also said on Monday that 124,000 people in the enclave have been forced to flee what it called "relentless bombardment" in the past few days, large numbers of people reportedly seeking shelter in hospitals.
More health workers, ambulances, hospitals attacked in Gaza: UN official
South African investment analysts and mining industry insiders are betting that the country's position as a leading producer of platinum group metals (PGMs), which are widely used in hydrogen, fuel cell and emissions reduction technologies, will offset the pain inflicted by U.S. tariffs targeting other South African exports.
As part of the Trump administration's tariff policy, all South African goods entering the U.S. are now subject to a 30-percent duty, with a specific 25-percent tariff imposed on vehicles and car parts. However, key mineral exports such as PGMs, coal, gold, manganese and chrome have been explicitly excluded from these new tariffs.
Platinum, together with other critical minerals like palladium and rhodium, is used to make auto catalysts for vehicle exhausts.
Robbie Proctor, an investment analyst with Anchor Capital in South Africa, observed that the United States may be able to source other critical minerals like palladium, but America does not have an alternative market for platinum other than South Africa.
"With the amount of recycled volumes of palladium that come into the market there, they actually could be almost self-sufficient in palladium. However, there is no chance of them being self-sufficient in platinum, regardless of how much investment goes in. Does the U.S. have an alternative market for platinum? The answer is a definite no," Proctor told China Global Television Network (CGTN) in an interview.
The exclusion of PGMs from the new U.S. tariff regime was widely anticipated by South Africa's mining industry, because without the commodity, America's automotive industry would not be able to manufacture catalytic converters and other component parts.
"The U.S. is a very big automotive sector. It's only second to China in terms of size and so, it's a big sector. And PGMs are a critical part of the catalytic converter exhaust management systems which are there to clean the air. And so, palladium and rhodium and obviously platinum are very important in those particular processes," said Roger Baxter, executive chairman of Southern Palladium, a key play in South Africa's exploration and development of PGMs.
South Africa's Sibanye Stillwater is one of the world's largest producers of PGMs and has operations in the U.S. The company sees opportunity in the turmoil.
"Having that footprint in the U.S. is for us strategically important, because I think a lot of this is about securing supply for the U.S. in terms of critical metals, self-generated, self-mined, self-developed," said Richard Stewart, chief regional officer of Africa at Sibanye Stillwater.
To Craig Miller, CEO of Anglo American Platinum, it is essential that South Africa's mining industry shift to the development of clean energy technologies going forward as the world quickly transitions away from internal combustion engines.
"We produce metals and we sell them globally, both to Europe, to China, to Japan, and to the U.S., but as a company, we are really focused around the future uses of PGMs as well, so actively looking at market development, and that market development is really in the form of new energy and in hydrogen," he said.
Others in the mining industry see a bright future for platinum jewelry, as the rare metal has become the metal of choice for South African jewelry designers due to its durability and resiliency, especially in the uncertain global trade environment.
"We've seen platinum ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) are similar to gold. But I think this is where there's an opportunity to do a lot more work on the demand side to increase the opportunities for investment and demand in platinum," said Mzila Mthenjane, CEO of Minerals Council South Africa.
S Africa expected to withstand shock from US tariffs as world's leading platinum producer
