Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation and the protection of aid workers in Gaza

Mr. Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

New York, 13 May 2025

[AS DELIVERED]

Mr. President, Members of the Council,

Briefing you again on this subject is a grim undertaking.

Before starting, I ask you to reflect – for a moment – on what action we will tell future generations we each took to stop the 21st century atrocity to which we bear daily witness in Gaza.

It is a question we will hear, sometimes incredulous, sometimes furious – but always there – for the rest of our lives.

We will surely all claim to have been against it? Maybe we will say we issued a statement? Or that we trusted that private pressure might work, despite so much evidence to the contrary?

Or pretend that we thought a more brutal military offensive had more chance of bringing the hostages home than the negotiations which brought so many hostages home?

Maybe some will recall that in a transactional world we had other priorities.

Or maybe we will use those empty words: “We did all we could.”

Mr. President,

Let me start with what we see and are mandated by this Council to report.

Israel is deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

For more than 10 weeks, nothing has entered Gaza – no food, medicine, water or tents.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have, again, been forcibly displaced and confined into ever-shrinking spaces, as 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory is either within Israeli-militarized zones or under displacement orders.

As my colleague from the FAO will explain, every single one of the 2.1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face the risk of famine. One in five face starvation.

Despite the fact that you have funded the food that could save them.

The few hospitals that have somehow survived bombardment are overwhelmed. The medics who have somehow survived drone and sniper attacks cannot keep up with the trauma and the spread of disease.

Even today, the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis was bombed, again, with even more civilian casualties reported.

I can tell you from having visited what’s left of Gaza’s medical system that death on this scale has a sound and a smell that does not leave you. As one hospital worker described it, “children scream as we peel burnt fabric from their skin…”

And yet we hear that “we did all we could.”

Mr. President,

Our response as humanitarians is to make a single ask of the Council: let us work.

The UN and our partners are desperate to resume humanitarian aid at scale across Gaza in line with the fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.

We have a plan. We have shown we can deliver, with tens of thousands of trucks reaching civilians during the ceasefire. We have life-saving supplies ready, now, at the borders.

We can save hundreds of thousands of survivors. We have rigorous mechanisms to ensure our aid gets to civilians, and not to Hamas.

But Israel denies us access, placing the objective of depopulating Gaza before the lives of civilians. It is bad enough that the blockade continues. How do you react when Israeli Ministers boast of it?

Or when attacks on humanitarian workers and violations of the UN’s privileges and immunities continue, along with restrictions on international and non-governmental organizations.

Mr. President,

This Council has adopted resolutions that demand all parties to the conflict comply with international humanitarian law and protection of civilians, including humanitarian personnel.

A reminder that Israel also has clear obligations under international humanitarian law.

It must treat civilians humanely, with respect for their inherent human dignity. It must not forcibly transfer, deport or displace the civilian population of an occupied territory.

As the occupying power, it must agree to aid and facilitate it.

So, for anyone still pretending to be in any doubt, the Israeli-designed distribution modality is not the answer.

It practically excludes many, including people with disabilities, women, children, the elderly, the wounded.

It forces further displacement.

It exposes thousands of people to harm.

It sets an unacceptable precedent for aid delivery not just in the OPT, but around the world.

It restricts aid to only one part of Gaza, while leaving other dire needs unmet.

It makes aid conditional on political and military aims.

It makes starvation a bargaining chip.

It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.

If any of that still matters, have no part in it.

Mr. President,

For the record, we have tried. The UN has met 12 times – and again this morning – with the Israeli authorities to discuss this proposed modality. We wanted to find a way to make it possible.

We repeatedly explained the minimum conditions for our involvement on the basis of long-settled fundamental principles: aid based on independent assessments of who needs it – the globally tested and donor-demanded basic requirement – and the ability to deliver aid to all those in need wherever they are.

The Secretary-General set out the relevant international law in his submissions to the International Court of Justice.

And your resolutions have strongly condemned starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access.

Resolution 2417 demands the Council’s full attention to widespread conflict-induced food insecurity.

Mr. President,

It’s not just Gaza. Appalling violence is also increasing in the West Bank, where the situation is the worst in decades.

The use of heavy weaponry, military methods of war, excessive force, forcible displacement, demolitions and movement restrictions. Ongoing, illegal settlement expansion.

Entire communities destroyed, refugee camps depopulated.

Settlements expanding, and settler violence continuing at alarming levels, sometimes with the support of Israeli forces.

Recently, settlers abducted a 13-year-old girl and her three-year-old brother. They were found tied to a tree. Do we also say to them that “we did all we could?”

Mr. President,

There is, I fear, a broader context here.

For the past 19 months Palestinian journalists, civil society and individuals have live-streamed their destruction to the world. Many have been targeted and killed for their testimony.

And during this time, international aid workers have been the only international civilian presence in Gaza, watching and reporting the unfolding horror. We are your eyes and your ears.

And be in no doubt that we feel the weight of that responsibility, to you, to the communities we serve and to the world.

And so, we have briefed this Council in great detail on the extensive civilian harm that we witness daily: death, injury, destruction, hunger, disease, torture, other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, repeated displacement, on a large scale.

We have described the deliberate obstruction of aid operations and the systematic dismantling of Palestinian life, and that which sustains it, in Gaza.

So, you have that information. And now, the ICJ is considering whether a genocide is taking place in Gaza.

It will weigh the testimony that we have shared. But it will be too late.

Recognizing the urgency, the ICJ has indicated clear provisional measures that must be implemented now, yet they have not.

Previous reviews of the UN’s conduct in cases of large-scale violations of international human rights and humanitarian law – reports on Myanmar, 2019; Sri Lanka, 2012; Srebrenica and Rwanda, both in 1999 – pointed to our collective failure to speak to the scale of violations while they were committed.

So, for those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now? Will you act – decisively – to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?

Or will you say instead that “we did all we could?”

Mr. President,

This degradation of international law is corrosive and infectious. It is undermining decades of progress on rules to protect civilians from inhumanity and the violent and lawless among us who act with impunity.

Humanity, the law and reason must prevail.

This Council must prevail. Demand this ends. Stop arming it. Insist on accountability.

To the Israeli authorities: stop killing and injuring civilians. Lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives.

To Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups: release all hostages immediately and unconditionally. Stop putting civilians at risk during military operations.

And for those who will not survive what we fear is coming – in plain sight – it will be no consolation to know that future generations will hold us in this chamber to account.

But they will.

And, if we have not seriously done “all we could,” then we should fear that judgement.

Thank you.