UN officials urge action to uphold international humanitarian law in Gaza 

07 April 2025

Top United Nations officials today called on the world to act with urgency to save Palestinians in Gaza, in a statement co-signed by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher – as well as the heads of UNICEF, the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

“For over a month, no commercial or humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza,” they said. “More than 2.1 million people are trapped, bombed and starved again, while, at crossing points, food, medicine, fuel and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck.”

Although the latest ceasefire allowed humanitarians to see that life-saving supplies reached nearly every part of Gaza, the UN officials said assertions that there is now enough food to feed all Palestinians in the Strip are far from the reality on the ground, and commodities are running extremely low.

“With the tightened Israeli blockade on Gaza now in its second month, we appeal to world leaders to act – firmly, urgently and decisively – to ensure the basic principles of international humanitarian law are upheld,” they said. “Protect civilians. Facilitate aid. Release hostages. Renew a ceasefire.”

Today marks one and a half years since the 7 October 2023 attacks on communities in Israel.

Eighteen months on, the UN is as appalled – as it was then – by those horrific actions. Dozens of hostages remain in captivity, with no opportunities for visits and extremely concerning reports of mistreatment.

As the UN has said repeatedly, nothing can justify the torture, killing, maiming and abduction of civilians, nor the use of sexual violence or the launching of rockets towards civilian targets.

The UN reiterates once again that all hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. Until then, they must be treated humanely, and Hamas must allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit them.

Across Gaza, Israeli attacks continue unabated, causing systematic, large-scale civilian casualties. People – including many children – are being killed, injured or maimed for life.

Survivors throughout the Strip are being displaced repeatedly and forced into an ever-shrinking space, where their basic needs cannot be secured.

Just yesterday, following Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, another Israeli displacement order was issued, this time for over 3 square kilometres in Deir al Balah. The location included nine neighbourhoods, with several medical facilities serving people inside or just outside that area.

Overall, nearly 390,000 people are estimated to have been displaced yet again since the breakdown of the ceasefire. That’s 18 per cent of all Palestinians in Gaza. No arrangements to secure their safety and survival have been made – a responsibility that falls to Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza.

In a statement issued for World Health Day, WHO said Gaza continues to be one of the most dangerous places to be a child and a place where pregnancy is clouded by fear.

WHO warned that the aid blockade is deepening the hunger and malnutrition crisis in the Strip, leaving families without clean water, shelter and adequate healthcare, and increasing the risk of disease and death.

Supplies are critically low in stock, including those needed for cesarean sections, anesthesia, intravenous fluids, antibiotics and surgical sutures, as well as blood units. Other equipment and medicines that have not been allowed in include incubators, ventilators for neonatal intensive care, ultrasound machines and oxygen pumps, along with 180,000 doses of routine childhood vaccines.

The UN continues to distribute what remains inside Gaza to those most in need, but the humanitarian community cannot sustain this for much longer unless the crossings are opened for supplies essential for people’s survival. OCHA says all attempts to pick up commodities that had been brought in and dropped at these crossings have been denied.

OCHA notes that coordination with the Israeli authorities is required for any humanitarian organization to access vast areas within the Gaza Strip, with most attempts to coordinate these movements resulting in access being denied.

Just yesterday, the Israeli authorities denied five of nine attempts to coordinate access by UN aid workers. OCHA reports that while staff rotations are often facilitated, aid delivery is regularly blocked. These denials prevent humanitarians from carrying out tasks as critical as the delivery of chemicals to run desalination plants.

Despite extremely challenging conditions and rapidly shrinking humanitarian access, WHO reported that the agency reached Al Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza on Friday. This facility is again overwhelmed, with only three operating theatres and an emergency unit that is pushed to eight times its capacity. WHO noted that of the 160 available blood units there, 50 were used in a single day, leaving stocks critically low. The hospital’s CT scanner – the only one in northern Gaza – has broken down due to sustained overuse.

To address the surge in trauma cases at Al Ahli, WHO supported the deployment of an international orthopedic emergency medical team to the hospital. WHO is also supporting the improvement of trauma care pathways to enable patient transfers to Al Shifa Hospital.