This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Guterres hails 60 years of UN trade and development action

The right to development is inextricably linked with trade which the world’s poorest countries - now “mired in debt” through no fault of their own - have every right to pursue on much fairer terms, UN chief António Guterres insisted on Wednesday.

In a speech marking 60 years of UN Trade and Development – previously UNCTAD - the UN Secretary-General highlighted the multiple challenges standing in the way of a more sustainable and inclusive global economy for all.

“New and protracted conflicts are having a ripple effect across the global economy. Global debt has soared while key development indicators, including poverty and hunger, have regressed,” Mr. Guterres told the UN Trade and Development Global Leaders Forum.

On a flying visit to Switzerland, Mr. Guterres reprised previous warnings that the global monetary system “has been exposed as outdated, dysfunctional, and unjust” and had “failed to provide a safety net for developing countries”.

Against this deeply concerning backdrop, and amid escalating geopolitical tensions Mr. Guterres insisted that the role of the Geneva-based agency UN Trade and Development was “more relevant than ever” in working for a more sustainable and inclusive global economy, through trade and investment.

The UN agency cannot be neutral on development problems – “just as the World Health Organization could not be neutral on malaria”, the UN chief said, referencing the famous words of Raul Prebisch, UNCTAD’s first Secretary-General. 

Gaza: Hamas and Israel carried out war crimes, finds top rights probe

With growing international calls for the warring parties in Gaza to accept Monday’s Security Council ceasefire deal, top human rights investigators said on Wednesday that the actions of Hamas and Israel during the conflict amounted to war crimes.

On Hamas, the Commission of Inquiry probe said that it and other armed groups “must immediately cease rocket attacks” on Israel and release all remaining hostages captured in deadly raids on 7 October that sparked the war.

 The investigators insisted that the taking of hostages by Hamas “constitutes a war crime”, while alleging that Israel was responsible “for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare” in Gaza, of “murder or wilful killing, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects”.

A statement issued by the Human Rights Council which created the commission of inquiry in 2021 noted the panel’s other findings including the allegation of “crimes against humanity of extermination, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys”.

Upon publication of the report, Israel rejected its findings and reiterated accusations of “systematic anti-Israeli discrimination”, political bias and of drawing a “false-equivalence” between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters.

Thousands more evacuated from Kharkiv: UNHCR

To the Ukrainian frontline, where the UN and partners have been helping the authorities evacuate thousands of people from frontline villages in the country’s northeast.

In an update on Tuesday, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that most of the evacuees are “already highly vulnerable” and could not have fled on their own earlier.

They included mainly older people and those with low mobility or disabilities “who left their homes with only a few belongings”, the UN agency said.

Meanwhile in the nearby city of Karkhiv, more than one in 10 people have now lost their homes, amid renewed Russian shelling.

In an update on the massive reconstruction needs of the city in Ukraine’s northeast, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, UNECE, cited reports that 150,000 of the 1.3 million people there are without housing.

The UN agency noted data from the local authorities showing that since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, approximately 9,000 houses have been destroyed, along with 110 nurseries and half the city’s schools.

In addition, all transformer substations on the power grid have been put out of action in Kharkiv, along with 88 medical centres and 185 other public buildings, UNECE said, as it continued efforts to convene international partners in support of Kharkiv’s reconstruction at the Berlin Ukraine Recovery Conference, ending Wednesday. 

Approximately $10 billion will need to be mobilized for the future reconstruction of the city, according to the local authority estimates.