This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Gaza: No improvement in northern aid access

The situation for Gazans remains dire, despite hopes stemming from recent commitments by Israel to boost assistance, the UN’s top aid official in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said on Friday.

Jamie McGoldrick, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator overseeing crisis relief in Gaza, pushed back at Israeli claims that more than 1,000 trucks had entered Gaza in the last few days but only around 800 had been collected on the Palestinian side.

Mr. McGoldrick described long delays at checkpoints to the north and a “security vacuum” inside the enclave that continues to hamper the delivery of aid where it is most needed.

“So far this month, some 60 hours of trucks going up there in down time and dead time …And then what happens sometimes, it’s too late in the day - because you can only travel in daylight hours - to go north and therefore sometimes the mission is cancelled. And then we get blamed by Israel for cancelling the convoy, cancelling the mission to the north.”

Mr. McGoldrick renewed his appeal to the Israeli authorities to recognise that their responsibility as the occupying power “only ends when…aid reaches the civilians in Gaza”.

Only three roads are open in Gaza today: the middle route via Salah Al Deen road, the coastal Al Rashid road – and the military road on the east side of Gaza. 

“At no point in time in the last month” have even two of those roads been open at the same time, the UN aid coordinator maintained.

Sudan facing looming famine, warn humanitarians

To Sudan, where UN humanitarians issued a fresh alert on Friday about pervasive food insecurity and looming famine.

After nearly a year of war, food production has been hit and communities face acute shortages of other essential resources such as water and fuel.

More than eight million people are believed to have been uprooted from their homes with tens of thousands killed or wounded.

The World Health Organization (WHO) meanwhile has warned that every seventh child under five is acutely malnourished and 70 to 80 per cent of health centres are no longer functioning.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that five million people were “on the brink of famine” in areas affected by conflict: 

“With the lean season expected to start soon and without unhindered access for aid, the situation will only worsen in the coming months; 3.5 million children -that's every seventh child under five years is acutely malnourished; 230,000 children, pregnant women and new mothers could die in the coming months due to hunger unless urgent lifesaving funding and aid address their needs.”

New data from the UN Development Programme, UNDP, also highlighted the accelerating hunger crisis in Sudan, with famine expected this year.

Moderate or severe food insecurity already affects nearly six in 10 households, with West Kordofan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states worst-hit.

UNDP urged immediate food aid assistance for the most vulnerable in Sudan where more than half of the rural households contacted for its research reported that farming work has been disrupted significantly in the states of Khartoum, Sennar and West Kordofan.

Ukraine war leaves 3.3 million in dire need on frontlines: IOM 

Ukrainians remain under “constant attack” and 3.3 million living on the frontline need emergency assistance urgently, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Friday.

Days after rocket fire killed dozens in the east and south of the country, head of the International Organization for Migration, Amy Pope, warned that the situation is worsening for many in Ukraine.

“Displaced people and host communities need urgent assistance as they continue to endure missile strikes, destruction of infrastructure and frequent power cuts” Ms. Pope said.

IOM estimates that some 800,000 children live on the frontlines, just some of the more than 14.6 million people in Ukraine who need humanitarian aid amid Russia’s continuing invasion.

The UN agency has helped thousands of displaced people near the frontline and elsewhere in Ukraine with immediate and longer-term needs, including restoring livelihoods and supporting community resilience.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.