State of Palestine

Women in Afghanistan are falling significantly behind global standards for human development, a UN-Women report released today states. The country has the second-widest gender gap in the world, with a 76 per cent disparity between women’s and men’s outcomes in health, education, financial inclusion and decision-making.

The latest “Hunger Hotspots” report, released by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), projects a serious increase in acute food insecurity in 13 countries and territories in the next five months. Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali are hotspots of the highest concern.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad, François Batalingaya, said today the country is in crisis with the east reaching a breaking point. Floods impacted nearly 2 million people last year; 3 million people are struggling to feed themselves. The $1.4 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 9 per cent funded.

The General Assembly today demanded that Israel, the occupying Power, immediately end the blockade in Gaza, open all border crossings and ensure that aid reaches the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip immediately and at scale.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that a complete collapse of Internet and data services is paralysing aid operations across Gaza. This is reportedly not a routine outage — but a total failure of Gaza’s digital infrastructure — and most agencies are largely cut off from teams on the ground.

A new report released today by the International Labour Organization and the UN Children’s Fund shows early 138 million children were engaged in child labour in 2024, including 54 million in hazardous work likely to jeopardize their health, safety or development. This number is 20 million children less than in 2020.

A United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, released today, finds that one in five people globally do not expect to have the number of children they desire. Key drivers include the prohibitive cost of parenthood, job insecurity, housing, concerns over the state of the world and the lack of a suitable partner.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher has released $6 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to respond to the worst malnutrition crisis to hit the north-east Nigeria in five years. One million children under age five in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States are at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

In Ukraine, attacks across the country, which started last night and continued this morning, have reportedly killed over 45 civilians. The UN and humanitarian partners are providing immediate assistance in the impacted regions, including construction materials, hygiene kits, emergency shelter and psychological support.

In Bangladesh, where monsoon rains and high winds triggered landslides, floods and damage across the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the International Organization for Migration, in coordination with State authorities, launched an emergency response to support emergency relocations and rescue operations.