This is the News in Brief from the United Nations. 

Gaza humanitarian crisis deepens as fighting rages on across the Strip 

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths reiterated deep concerns for the people of Gaza on Monday, amid reports of intense fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza City and Jabalia in the north of the Strip, and in Khan Younis in the south, while Israeli bombardment of the enclave has continued. 

Speaking in Doha, Mr. Griffiths said that the situation was “getting worse”, while efforts to secure “moments of peace” remained of the “greatest importance”.  

The latest update from UN relief coordination office (OCHA) said that tens of thousands of people “in desperate need of food, water, shelter, health and protection” who recently fled to Rafah in the south, had waited for hours around aid distribution centres. 

The lack of adequate sanitation had led to “widespread” open-air defecation, increasing fears of disease spread, OCHA said. 

According to the Gazan health authorities, about 18,000 people have now been killed in Gaza since the fighting began; about 70 per cent are said to be women and children; and more than 49,000 people are reportedly injured. 

Israel’s retaliation for Hamas’ terror attacks on 7 October in which some 1,200 people were killed in the south of the country and 240 taken hostage, has led to a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 

Close to 1.9 million people, the vast majority of the population of the Strip, have been displaced, aid operations are severely impeded by the fighting and only a bare minimum of fuel and relief items have been getting in. 

COP28: UN chief urges climate talks ambition as clock runs out

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday urged a deal at COP28 on the phaseout of fossil fuels, telling negotiators that “now is the time for maximum ambition and maximum flexibility,” as UN climate talks in Dubai head into the home stretch.

Some 48 hours before the world’s largest climate gathering was scheduled to end, Mr. Guterres reiterated his call for the COP outcome to include a “credible plan” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But with the conference so close to the finish line, there is still a “gap that needs to be bridged”, Mr. Guterres said.

Timelines for phasing out fossil fuels and cutting emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses remain major sticking points. A scale-up of renewable energy capacity, investing in climate resilience and ensuring financial support for vulnerable countries are among the key agenda items for negotiators to reach a deal on.

Mr. Guterres underscored that in a “fractured and divided world, COP28 can show that multilateralism remains our best hope to tackle global challenges.”

Human rights at 75: Türk calls on countries to overcome divisions 

Three quarters of a century ago, all Member States of the newly born United Nations set aside their differences to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in today’s times of “so little solidarity” remains a call to overcome polarisation.

That’s the message from UN rights chief Volker Türk on Monday as world leaders and human rights defenders were set to gather in Geneva to mark the ground-breaking document’s 75th anniversary.

Mr. Türk said that while the Declaration has been a source of transformative societal progress across the world, the past 75 years have also seen “numerous failures to uphold human rights”.

“My thoughts go to the millions of people suffering unbearably in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, notably Gaza, and Israel; in Sudan; Ukraine; Myanmar; and so many other places,” he said.

Mr. Türk acknowledged the diverse roots of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the world’s reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, the Haitian revolution, “the profound African values of interdependence, cooperation and collective responsibility” and the Islamic principle of zakat, or compassionate sharing, among others.

The Declaration’s universality made it a guide to solving the world’s most pressing challenges, the UN rights chief said, and its anniversary is a call to action to work together and base all decisions “on the intrinsic and equal value of every human life”. 

Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer, UN News.