This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Rafah exodus reaches 360,000 as UN renews $2.8 billion appeal for Gaza, West Bank

Nearly 360,000 people have fled Rafah in the last week amid continuing Israeli bombardment that has crippled humanitarian aid deliveries and is believed to have killed another UN aid worker.

According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, ongoing “restricted humanitarian access” to and across the Gaza Strip is now “a matter of life or death” for Gazans already suffering “relentless bombardments and food insecurity”.

The development comes one week since Israel moved ahead with its military offensive in Rafah, seizing control of the Rafah border crossing and the Kerem Shalom crossing, both in the south of Gaza.

“We immediately and urgently need safe passage for humanitarian aid and workers,” the UN agency insisted, amid fresh reports of more clashes and shelling in Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the enclave.

“Bombardments and other evacuation orders have created more displacement and fear for thousands of families” in the north, UNRWA said. “There’s nowhere to go. There’s NO safety without a ceasefire,” it added.

The UN agency also reported on Monday that another staff member had been killed in Gaza, bringing the latest number to 189.

The individual was believed to have died in an Israeli strike in the central town of Deir Al Balah, after leaving Rafah. “He leaves behind a wife with four children,” the agency said.

Ukraine: Nearly 2,000 children killed or injured since escalation of war 

To Ukraine, where nearly 2,000 children have been killed or injured since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 – the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Monday.

In an alert, UNICEF highlighted that the true number of children killed was likely much higher.

The UN agency also warned that half of the young teenagers it contacted have trouble sleeping, and one in five have flashbacks and other unwanted thoughts.

The development comes as heavy fighting rages between Ukrainian and Russian forces over the northeastern Kharkiv area, and as residents of Vovchansk close to the Russian border have been reportedly fleeing their homes.

Countless lives at stake in Sudan’s El Fasher, warn UN aid teams

Reports have been coming in that a hospital in Sudan’s North Darfur has been damaged in a heavy uptick of hostilities, leaving two youngsters dead and fanning renewed famine fears, UN aid teams have said.

According to UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths, a “strike” damaged the roof of the intensive care unit at Southern Hospital in El Fasher Town – the only working hospital in North Darfur state – where medical supplies are running dangerously low.

Some 800,000 people live in and around El Fasher Town, where “countless lives are at stake. Sudan is at a tipping point,” Mr. Griffiths said in a message on X late on Sunday.

In an update on the hostilities, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) reported that dozens of civilians had been killed in renewed heavy fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces.

OCHA said that the clashes included airstrikes and heavy weapons in the town centre, the outskirts of the main market and neighbourhoods, causing death and injury.

Before the latest bloodshed, humanitarians warned that months of escalating violence around El Fasher Town had been behind “persistent” aid access obstructions that had hampered the sustained flow of aid and basic commodities, “pushing people to the brink of famine”.

In Darfur alone, some nine million people need humanitarian assistance today, but a staggering 24.8 million across Sudan – almost one in two people in the country - now require help from the UN and aid partners. 

Daniel Johnson, UN News