(UN News)* — The Occupied Palestinian Territory is now in its deepest economic crisis ever recorded, with Gaza suffering an “unprecedented and catastrophic” collapse, according to a new report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) presented in Geneva on Tuesday [].
UN News | People walk through a destroyed neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Speaking at the launch of UNCTAD’s 2025 Report on the Economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the agency’s Deputy Secretary-General Pedro Manuel Moreno said decades of movement restrictions, combined with the latest military operations, had “wiped out decades of progress” and left both Gaza and the West Bank facing long-term devastation.
(UN News)* — Women in Gaza are ensuring their families’ survival “with nothing but courage and exhausted hands” while violence continues and essentials remain in short supply, the UN’s gender equality agency warned on Tuesday [].
UN Women’s Chief of Humanitarian Action Sofia Calltorp, who just returned from a visit to the enclave last week, said that women there repeatedly told her “there may be a cease-fire, but the war is not over”.
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“The attacks are fewer, but the killings continue,” she said.
(UN News)* —The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, says major companies and fast-moving technologies are creating new challenges for tackling rights abuses – and that governments and businesses need to step up.
UN Photo/Mark Garten | Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in an interview with UN News.
Opening the 14th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva on Monday [24 November 2025] he said that corporate power has become increasingly influential in terms of social change.
He warned that without proper checks in place, new tools like generative artificial intelligence – or AI – could easily be misused.
“When powerful tech giants introduce new technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence,human rights can be the first casualty,” he said.
New report warns more children are at risk of falling into poverty as global funding cuts, conflict and climate threaten access to services crucial for health and wellbeing.
UNICEF/UNI630167/Frank Dejongh
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NEW YORK – More than 1 in 5 children in low- and middle-income countries – or 417 million – are severely deprived in at least two vital areas critical for their health, development, and wellbeing, according to UNICEF’s flagship report issued on World Children’s Dayobserved on 20 November 2025.
(UN News)* — Seventeen civilians, including women in labour and patients receiving care, were slaughtered inside a Catholic Church-run health centre in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) last week.
The UN described it as one of the most appalling attacks in a new wave of violence by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed extremist rebel group.
Four wards housing patients were set ablaze during the assault in Byambwe, a remote community about 60 kilometres west of Lubero in the restive North Kivu province, which has been plagued by fighting between a plethora of armed groups and national security forces for years.
(UN News)* — Ongoing attacks and airstrikes attributed to Israeli forces in Gaza continue to kill and maim people of all ages in the shattered enclave despite an agreed ceasefire, UN agencies said on Friday [].
UN News | Destruction extends across Gaza where UN agencies continue to seek out the enclave’s most vulnerable communities who have often been displaced multiple times since war erupted following Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel.
“Yesterday morning, a baby girl was reportedly killed in Khan Younis by an airstrike, while the day before, seven children were killed in Gaza City and the south,” said Ricardo Pires, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
(Jerusalem) – The Israeligovernment’s forced displacement of the populations of three West Bank refugee camps in January and February 2025 amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 20 November 2025.
(UN News)* — General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock warned on Thursday [] that repeated deadlock in the Security Council has become the “poster child” for wider global gridlock, undermining trust in multilateral institutions.
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock chairs a meeting on the report of the International Criminal Court.
The UN was founded to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” Ms. Baerbock said, but the world body is struggling to meet that mandate when the Council isblocked by a veto from one of its five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US).
(UN News)* — Living conditions for Gazans – particularly children – are still dire as temperatures drop and families return to bombed-out homes as the fragile ceasefire holds, UN aid workers said on Wednesday [].
Children’s Fund, UNICEF, highlighted the case of six-year-old twins Yahya and Nabeela who were critically injured by an unexploded remnant of war in the north of the wartorn enclave.
They are receiving mental health support from the agency and tarpaulins to protect them from the cold.