This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Gazans on tenterhooks awaiting news of ceasefire call

In Gaza, amid reports on Wednesday of further deadly Israeli strikes overnight, UN humanitarians underscored the ongoing devastating impact of the war and the need to get much more aid to people in desperate need.

At a school in Deir Al Balah belonging to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, some 2,400 people rely on assistance that has to be trucked into Gaza.

This is critically important for one-third of all families with children under five, but the UN aid office, OCHA, reported that Israeli authorities “blocked or excessively delayed” 75 per cent of all UN-coordinated relief missions across Gaza on Monday.

"One of those missions went to northern Gaza following full coordination with the Israeli authorities, but the team was forced to wait for a combined time of more than nine hours before departing, on the way north, and on the way back to Rafah," OCHA said.

It added that these delays “put humanitarian missions in jeopardy and …workers in harm’s way, as fighting between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces often takes place near checkpoints".

In a related development, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA said that the  demolition of Palestinian property and displacement continue unabated in the occupied West Bank.

Latest data indicates more than 380 structures have been demolished in West Bank governorates, uprooting around 650 people. 

Ukraine landmine contamination still having global economic impact: UNDP

To Ukraine, where UN-partnered efforts to make the country safe from unexploded weapons hazards are progressing apace, mine action experts said on Wednesday.

Last year alone, Ukrainian teams declared safe an area about half the size of Switzerland – allowing the land to be farmed again.

The problem of unexploded ordnance is still enormous, however, because in the more than two years since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, “in excess of 10,000 munitions” are used by both sides every day, according to the UN Development Programme, UNDP.

These weapons have a failure rate of between 10 and 30 per cent, which represents a serious danger on both sides of the front line, measuring 600 miles or almost 1,000 kilometres.

With more on the urgent need to ensure that large areas of Ukraine are safe for people to return to, here’s Paul Heslop, Programme Manager for Mine Action with UNDP in Ukraine:

“Another aspect of this conflict, I think we need to think about which, again, will be on both sides, is the number of young men, you know, who are in their 20s and 30s, who now single, double or even as many quadruple amputations and, and how vast numbers of very serious injured veterans coming back into into society as this as this war comes to a close or hopefully comes to a close.”

DR Congo conflict driving record levels of displacement, hunger: OCHA

Escalating conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is driving record levels of gender-based violence, displacement and hunger.

That’s the alarming message from top UN and partner aid agencies, who’ve warned that without urgent international action, the country could be pushed “to the brink of catastrophe”.

The warning from the influential Inter-Agency Standing Committee follows decades of conflict in the vast central African country linked to resources and interference by heavily armed foreign militia. 

The current humanitarian emergency has already “exhausted and traumatized millions of civilians”, according to latest humanitarian assessments.

These indicate that more than 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the last few months alone, bringing the total number of displaced people to an all-time high of 7.2 million.

In a statement, the inter-agency panel said that gender-based violence has “surged to unprecedented levels”, just as more than 25 million people – a quarter of the population in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – continue to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity.

Shanaé Harte, UN News.