This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

World court seeks arrest warrants for Hamas leaders and Israel’s Netanyahu

Arrest warrants are being sought for the leaders of Hamas and Israel for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to the war in Gaza, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Monday.

In a statement, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri and Ismail Haniyeh bore “criminal responsibility” for murder, extermination and taking hostages - among numerous other crimes - since the Gaza conflict erupted after Hamas-led attacks in Israel on 7 October.

There are also reasonable grounds to believe that Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israeli Minister of Defence, “bear criminal responsibility” for other crimes and crimes against humanity “committed on the territory of the State of Palestine”, he said.

 “Today we once again underline in the clearest possible fashion that international law and the laws of armed conflict apply to everyone. No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader – no one – can act with impunity. Nothing on earth can justify wilfully depriving human beings, including women and children, babies, the old and young of the basic necessities required for life. Nothing, nothing can justify the taking of hostages or the targeting of civilians.”

Although the ICC is not a UN organization, it has an agreement of cooperation with the United Nations. 

Gaza: Now 810,000 have fled Rafah amid ongoing Israeli assault

Staying in Gaza, where UN humanitarians said on Monday that at least 810,000 people have fled Rafah in just two weeks, amid reports of ongoing Israeli military operations.

“Every time families are displaced their lives are at serious risk. People are forced to leave everything behind looking for safety,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X.

Accompanying the UNRWA alert, images showed families with their belongings piled high on the back of cars and makeshift trailers; another photograph from the coastline showed a mass of shelters for the displaced stretching into the distance.

Latest data from the UN agency’s online logistics platform indicated that the delivery of humanitarian aid has stopped almost entirely via the main entry points to Gaza - in Rafah and Kerem Shalom in the south.

Following an escalation of military activity in eastern Rafah, no UN relief supplies reached the enclave on Sunday and only 27 aid trucks entered via Kerem Shalom on Saturday, the UN agency portal showed. 

Meanwhile in Gaza’s northwest, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported that it has been transporting supplies in via Erez to “try to get enough food to stop famine in its tracks”. 

But Matthew Hollingworth, WFP Country Director for Palestine, insisted that humanitarians needed additional entry points for aid. 

Yemen: rights experts call for release of Baháí religious minority detainees

Top rights experts called on Monday for the urgent release of five people belonging to the Baháí faith one year after their abduction by de facto authorities in Yemen. 

The five detainees “continue to be at serious risk of torture”, said the independent rights experts, who include Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion.

In a statement alleging the “targeted persecution of religious minorities in Yemen”, the rights experts said the Ansar Allah movement – also known as the Houthis - were responsible.

Other Baháí believers who have been released have faced severe pressure to recant their religious beliefs, the rights experts maintained, before warning that hate speech against minorities - including by the Houthi Grand Mufti of Sana’a - had made matters worse.

Shanae Harte, UN News.