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Safe passage is needed urgently throughout Gaza for aid teams to replenish dangerously low stocks of lifesaving supplies throughout Gaza, humanitarians insisted on Thursday, as the UN’s top court prepared to hear a new request from South Africa to issue more constraints on Israeli military action in the enclave.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres repeated his longstanding call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages held in the enclave, and unimpeded access for aid delivery, in remarks to the Summit of the League of Arab States in Bahrain on Thursday. 

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine condemned air strikes in Kherson city on Thursday, which injured dozens of civilians, including two children, and damaged homes and an education facility. 

The bi-annual UN forum on entrepreneurship and innovation wrapped up its work in Bahrain on Thursday focusing on women entrepreneurs from conflict zones, who stressed the importance of investing in their activities as a means of building peace, security, and stability in their communities.

The global economic picture has improved since January, but vulnerabilities remain, the mid-year update of the World Economic Situation and Prospects report published on Thursday has revealed.

Delegates attending a UN forum in Bahrain endorsed on Wednesday a declaration calling on the international community to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a strong emphasis on including women, youth, persons with disabilities and productive families in these efforts. 

UN agencies are reaching Haitians in the besieged capital and other areas amid ongoing gang violence that continues to ravage the Caribbean nation, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told journalists on Wednesday.

The number of child migrants crossing the perilous Darién Gap has surged by 40 per cent so far this year, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Wednesday, putting the route on track for a fifth consecutive year of record child migration levels.

The international community must give greater attention and resources to war-ravaged Sudan, where millions are “trapped in an inferno of brutal violence”, the top UN aid official in the country said on Wednesday. 

Amid some of the fiercest reported fighting in Gaza yet, UN humanitarians on Wednesday repeated warnings that famine is still an imminent threat because of aid restrictions and a lack of safe access.

Large parts of the city of Rafah are now a “ghost town”, with UN humanitarians reporting on Tuesday that some 450,000 Gazans have been forcibly displaced from the southernmost city by Israeli evacuation orders in the last week.

UN Secretary-General António Guteres is appalled by the escalation of Israeli military activity in and around Rafah in southern Gaza, his spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.   

A major UN forum opened on Tuesday in Bahrain. Its mission: to empower entrepreneurial leaders who can build a brighter future and achieve sustainable development for all.

Escalating Russian attacks in northeast Ukraine have killed civilians, sparked further displacement and caused massive destruction to railways and other infrastructure, a senior official with the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, told the Security Council on Tuesday. 

A senior official with the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, appealed on Monday for urgent action to support diplomatic and long-term solutions to address the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Nearly 360,000 people have fled Rafah in the last week amid continuing Israeli bombardment that has crippled humanitarian aid deliveries and is believed to have killed another UN aid worker, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Monday.

Despite two decades of worldwide efforts, more than 4,000 precious wildlife species still fall prey to trafficking every year, a new report by the UN crime and drugs prevention office, UNODC, showed on Monday. 

When asked what might be the most beautiful word in Shimamuni, the Indigenous language variety spoken on Okinoerabu Island in Kagoshima prefecture of southwestern Japan, Nami Sao pondered for a moment before replying “mihedirodoo.” Her husband, Tomoyuki Sao, is quick to elaborate that its utterance is always enlivened with a smile and tends to make fellow Shimamuni speakers noticeably more pleased than arigatou, the standard Japanese equivalent for saying thank you.

UN humanitarian teams scrambled to get lifesaving aid to communities devastated by deadly flash floods in northeastern Afghanistan over the weekend.

How can people be best supported during humanitarian crises with limited aid budgets and what can be done to help those same people break out of the cycle of dependency caused by multiple crises and move towards more sustainable development?

With the situation in Rafah “on a knife’s edge”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appealed again on Friday for Israeli and Hamas leaders “to demonstrate political courage and spare no effort” in reaching an agreement to end the war in Gaza and free all hostages. 

With no let-up in the Israeli military operation in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah into Friday, UN humanitarians issued renewed calls for a ceasefire as “the only hope” to avert further bloodshed and restore desperately needed aid deliveries.

Two arson attacks and growing protests forced UN Palestine refugee agency UNRWA to temporarily close its office in East Jerusalem this week, but its vital work will continue as war rages in Gaza and violence rises in the West Bank, Senior Communications Manager Jonathan Fowler told UN News on Friday.

The first-ever UN civil society conference held in Africa wrapped up in Nairobi on Friday hearing calls for “bold and honest” conversations among governments and civil society to drive forward shared vision for reinvigorated multilateralism, a better world and a brighter future for all.

More than 30,000 people displaced by gang violence in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, have access to safe drinking water thanks to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners. 

Some 80,000 people have left Rafah since Monday amid continuing Israeli bombardment in and around Gaza’s southernmost city overnight and into Thursday, UN humanitarians reported.

‘Meaningful participation’ and ‘inclusion’ were the buzzwords at the opening on Thursday of a major UN conference in Nairobi, Kenya, where governments were urged to heed the diverse voices of civil society, which were well-placed to work alongside them in building a fairer and more just future.

2023 saw another climate record tumble, with Latin America and the Caribbean registering their hottest ever recorded temperatures, according to the UN’s weather monitoring agency.

“Unprecedented and devastating” flooding in East Africa has triggered widespread displacement with hundreds of thousands forced from their homes in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania, UN humanitarians warned on Wednesday. 

Israeli military manoeuvres and shelling continued in and around eastern Rafah in southern Gaza on Wednesday morning as UN humanitarians stressed that “no fuel or aid” is getting into the enclave.