This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

‘Extraordinary, deep anxiety’ in Gaza from feared Rafah attack   

Ordinary people in Gaza are in a “constant state of trauma” over an impending full-scale Israeli attack on Rafah, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – UNRWA - said on Tuesday.

Speaking amid a growing number of reported Israeli strikes on Rafah, which is sheltering around one million displaced Gazans, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that there is “extraordinary, deep anxiety” over a possible offensive. 

Despite renewed international pressure for a humanitarian pause, no ceasefire breakthrough has yet been announced.

The UN agency chief also issued a renewed appeal for the release of all hostages taken during Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on 7 October – and all Palestinian detainees held in Israel as suspected militants:

“They have described to us waterboarding, severe beatings, being attacked by dogs, being forced to hold a stress position for hours - sometimes 12 hours, 24 hours - and being forced to wear diaper instead of accessing the toilet.”

Gaza’s hunger crisis has not gone away and continues to get worse, despite a small increase in aid relief deliveries to the north this month, the UNRWA chief said.

Gaza war spillover compounds misery for most vulnerable in Lebanon

Children as young as four are being forced to go to work in Lebanon amid a “massive collapse” in humanitarian funding, UN child experts said on Tuesday.

In a call for an immediate end to the war in Gaza which sparked intensifying exchanges of fire between armed militants Hezbollah and the Israeli military, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned that airstrikes are hitting “deeper and deeper” into Lebanon.

So far, 344 people have been killed, including eight youngsters and more than 90,000 have been displaced.

In a sign of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Lebanon linked to the crisis, the UN agency warned that rates of wasting were found to be unexpectedly high among children living in informal tented settlements for the displaced.

Here’s Ettie Higgins, UNICEF Lebanon deputy head of office:

“We’re seeing families, they’re sending the entire family out for begging; they're forcing children as young as four to work in agriculture…I spoke to a doctor recently who said that he had seven-year-olds coming to him with back problems because of the heavy loads of trash that they're carrying on a daily basis.”

Inside Lebanon, UNICEF reported that key water station infrastructure has been destroyed, leaving “around 100,000 people now denied access to clean drinking water”. 

Some 23 health facilities serving 4,000 people have also been forced to close.

UN rights chief Türk ‘troubled’ by law enforcement actions over US Gaza war protests

UN rights chief Volker Türk has said that he’s been “troubled” by the apparently “disproportionate” use of force to disperse protesters at universities across the US, linked to the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

In a statement on Tuesday, the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned such “heavy-handed steps” and insisted that freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly were “fundamental to society”.

Hundreds of student protesters have been arrested in recent weeks and although many have been released, others still face charges or academic sanctions, Mr. Türk noted.

The UN’s top rights official emphasised that antisemitic conduct and speech were “totally unacceptable and deeply disturbing”, just as anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian rhetoric and conduct “were equally reprehensible”. 

Mr. Türk urged universities and law enforcement to let their actions be guided by human rights law so that “vibrant debate” could take place.

The legitimate exercise of people’s freedom of expression must not be confused with incitement to violence and hatred, the High Commissioner insisted.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.