UN News Today 30 September 2025 |

Gaza: UN aid  teams stress urgent need for ceasefire

UN agencies reiterated calls for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday to help alleviate Palestinian suffering, as a new US plan raised hopes of an end to the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas.

Winter is fast-approaching and heavy fighting in the war-shattered enclave continues to drive mass displacement.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stressed a ceasefire is needed to prevent famine spreading southwards and to bring in shelter provisions.

Here’s UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires, speaking in Geneva:

“We have 11,000 tents waiting to get in and over 7,000 tarpaulin sheets that are waiting to get in to help supporting these displaced populations that are going to the south, to help them set up temporary shelters – and we’re not being able to get those supplies in.”

It remains extremely difficult to get permission from Israel to deliver aid into Gaza and then distribute it, UN humanitarians continue to report.

Nonetheless, aid coordination office, OCHA, said that community kitchens have been “resupplied to some extent”, with 660,000 meals prepared and delivered across 137 kitchens last Sunday.

Afghanistan: Taliban internet blackout cuts off country while needs surge

Efforts to help remote Afghan communities devastated by last month’s deadly earthquake disaster are already suffering setbacks because of the internet shutdown which came into effect on Monday night, UN aid agencies have warned.

The top UN official in the country, Indrika Ratwatte, said that all digital connectivity had been suspended until further notice, following a Taliban edict. 

Here he is now, speaking via satellite video link from Kabul:

“A top line impact is that connectivity is gone. So mobile phones, data connectivity, for example, our colleagues out in the deep field who are front-facing delivering, we don’t have connectivity with them. At a community level, I would imagine that for normal business transactions, for banking, for cash transfers, for remittances that come from abroad, which are critical for these communities, that’s been cut off.”

More than 43 million people in Afghanistan are now believed to be offline.

The Taliban began cutting communications cables several weeks ago, reportedly to tackle “vice”.

In addition to this development, the work of UN humanitarians had already been set back by the de facto authorities’ ban on national staff entering United Nations premises, earlier this month.

DR Congo crisis leaves peace a distant prospect, Security Council hears

The UN Security Council has been hearing an update on the violent unrest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that continues to stand in the way of peace.

In an update, the UN chief’s representative, Bintou Keita, said that more than 1,000 civilians had been killed in the eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu since June.

Ms. Keita repeated the Council’s clear message to the warring parties for an immediate and unconditional end to the fighting, and for the Rwanda-backed M23 fighters and others to withdraw from the cities of Goma and Bukavu – and end their “parallel administration”.

Despite the Council’s requests, the M23 group and their allies have continued their policy of territorial expansion and consolidation since re-emerging at the end of 2021, the top UN official warned.

Ms. Keita added that more than 7,000 new recruits have had military training in the past seven months in opposition fighter bases.

She insisted that the UN peacekeepers in the country remain fully committed to supporting a ceasefire – provided they have a clear Council mandate.

Daniel Johnson, UN News