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Gaza is by far the most dangerous place in the world to be a child and deaths of youngsters from disease will likely surpass those from bombardment in the absence of a ceasefire, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.

A lack of food, water, shelter and sanitation continues to put children’s lives at risk as they suffer under relentless airstrikes with no safe place to go, said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who recently returned from the enclave.

Developed with extensive technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO), this milestone marks one of the most significant socioeconomic reforms witnessed by Lebanon in recent years of compounded crises.

While some of the world’s poorest countries are welcoming refugees “with great hospitality”, the international community must match that generosity with far greater solidarity, UN chief António Guterres said on Friday.

Speaking at the closing of the Global Refugee Forum, the Secretary-General said that protection and help for these most vulnerable of people, was “an obligation shared by all of humanity”. 

Nations at COP28 in Dubai approved earlier on Wednesday a roadmap for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” – a first for a UN climate conference – but the deal still stopped short of a long-demanded call for a “phaseout” of oil, coal and gas.

The UN General Assembly met on Tuesday afternoon in Emergency Special Session on the decades long Israel-Palestine conflict and as the ongoing crisis in Gaza shows no signs of abating.  

Member States adopted a resolution, demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and well as “ensuring humanitarian access”.

UN-Habitat, FAO, the Embassy of Japan in Lebanon and the Municipality of Tripoli join community members to mark this achievement.

Invoking a rarely used article of the UN Charter, Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday called on the Security Council to “press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and unite in a call for a full humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The situation for Gazans is “getting worse by the hour”, the UN health agency WHO said on Tuesday, after some of the heaviest Israeli shelling in the enclave since Hamas militants massacred some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took around 240 hostages on 7 October.

Speaking from the southern city of Rafah, Dr. Rick Peeperkorn, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, described further bloodshed after the resumption of Israeli bombing last Friday.