UN News Today 22 January 2026 |

At UN, war crimes probe pledges to work for all impacted by Gaza war

As President Trump launched the Board of Peace plan for Gaza on Thursday, top war crimes experts pledged to continue their work for justice and accountability for all those impacted by the Hamas-Israel war.

The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and in Israel, is a top Human Rights Council probe; it was set up by the forum in May 2021.

At a press conference in Geneva, Commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said that the Board of Peace had been accepted by the UN Security Council; last November, it welcomed the Board as a “transitional administration” to oversee Gaza’s redevelopment.

“We expect the peace plan to accommodate the interests of all the people in the conflict zone. And we don’t find anything there that can possibly hinder the work of this Commission and we would expect, as we always did earlier, the complete cooperation of all the authorities in both territories of Israel and Palestine.”

Mr. Muralidhar – who like the other members of the Commission does not work for the UN and is not paid for his work – also said that he hoped the panel’s genocide allegation against Israel would be taken up by a court of law “to deliver lasting justice” to Gazans and Israelis.

Ukraine: UNICEF mourns killing of 17-year-old in Odesa attacks

To Ukraine, where the UN has condemned further deadly Russian strikes on residential areas overnight and on Thursday.

They include attacks in Odesa region on Wednesday that killed a 17-year-old boy, according to the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, which called for an “end to attacks on civilian areas and the infrastructure children rely on”.

In southeastern Ukraine, meanwhile, UN aid coordinators, OCHA, confirmed that attacks on the city of KryvyiRih on Wednesday had recommenced on Thursday.

Amid freezing temperatures, OCHA said that humanitarian teams had delivered shelter materials to cover damaged homes and provided protection services to the affected residents.

Nigeria: Emergency food assistance cuts expected ‘within weeks’

A UN alert from Nigeria warns that emergency food and nutrition assistance faces being stopped within weeks, unless funding can be found.

That’s the worrying message on Thursday from the World Food Programme, WFP, which said that more than one million people in the country’s northeast will be impacted.

“Now is not the time to stop food assistance,” said David Stevenson, WFP’s Nigeria Country Director. He warned of “catastrophic humanitarian, security and economic consequences” for Nigeria’s most vulnerable people, who had been forced to flee their homes in search of food and shelter. 

“Humanitarian solutions are still possible and are one of the last stabilising forces preventing mass displacement and regional spillover,” the WFP official noted.

Nigeria is facing one of the worst hunger crises in recent times. Nearly 35 million people are projected to experience acute and severe food insecurity during the 2026 lean season.

Of these, an estimated 15,000 people in Borno state face falling into catastrophic hunger, which is just one step away from famine. These are the worst levels of hunger recorded in a decade, WFP warned.

Daniel Johnson, UN News