Statement on Gaza by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
(28 March 2025) The Security Council met today on Gaza. We reported that for 10 terrible days, Israeli airstrikes in densely populated areas have killed hundreds of children and other civilians. Patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed.
Over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the past 537 days. Over 1,000 people in Israel were killed since the Hamas attacks on 7 October.
More than 142,000 people have been ordered to move, once again, with no safe place to go and no means to survive. For many there is no electricity, no water, no food, no safety.
Over 280 UN staff have been killed, including by Israeli tank fire on a clearly designated UN building last week.
All entry points into Gaza are closed for cargo since early March. At the border, food is rotting, medicine expiring, and vital medical equipment stuck. Inside Gaza, Israeli authorities deny humanitarian access to people in need.
International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks, obstruction of life-saving aid, destruction of infrastructure indispensable for civilians’ survival, and hostage-taking. The International Court of Justice’s provisional measures in the case on the application of the Genocide Convention remain in place. And yet, this continues without accountability.
So if the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act while it can to uphold them.
Protect civilians. Facilitate aid. Release hostages. Renew a ceasefire.