UN staff slam ‘cruellest’ double standards in global response to Gaza
A group of UN staff members has launched a new campaign in support of Palestinians facing atrocities in Gaza, with the former UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, Andrew Gilmour, as their chair.
“The international response to Gaza since 2023 counts as the cruellest and most extreme example of double standards in my lifetime,” Gilmour said in a statement.
It has made “a mockery of international law” and dealt a “terrible blow to human rights globally”, he added.
Gilmour also highlighted his support for UN staff working in “unspeakable conditions” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where he said hundreds of UN staff have been killed by Israeli forces “in their homes or while carrying out their life-saving UN work”.
Jan Eliasson, a former UN deputy secretary-general and former foreign minister of Sweden, also expressed his support, saying the “initiative is a way to remember and pay tribute to 330 colleagues who were killed in the Gaza nightmare while serving the UN and the Palestinian people”.
Palestinian boys stand near the damaged UNRWA headquarters in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on November 2, 2024, after Israeli forces demolished most of the building.
‘The humanitarian system in Gaza is collapsing’
We’ve been speaking to Amjad Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, in Gaza City, on the Israel-induced famine there.
He said aid workers are struggling to help people in Gaza. “We are trying to do our best. We are… part of this social fabric,” he said. “We are linked to the people here, and we are staying with them while Israel threatens to apply its plans to forcibly evacuate Gaza City and destroy the rest of Gaza. There are 1.1 million people here, most of them elderly, women, children, and people with disabilities.”
Despite the limited capacities, aid workers in Gaza are continuing to try to “deliver some services through our medical points; through the community kitchens, which we have very limited number of meals that we can provide; through our mental health support that we are giving for the children, women; education points that we are delivering some lessons for children; to be on the sides of people who are displaced; to work with people with disability,” he added.
Shawa went on to say that the “humanitarian system is collapsing” in Gaza.
This is because of “the Israeli attacks on the aid workers on our facilities”, and because Israel continues “to restrict the entry of the aid supplies through the international organisations that we are part of”, he said.
‘It’s time to stop this war on children’
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has again called for action over the starvation deaths of children in Gaza. “Across the Gaza Strip, most children examined by UNRWA health teams are emaciated, weak, and at risk of dying, if they do not get the treatment they urgently need,” it said in a post on X.
“According to @UNICEF, more than 50,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured (combined) in Gaza since October 2023. It’s time to stop this war on children,” it added.
Half a million in Gaza face famine: WFP
The World Food Programme (WFP) says despite its teams “doing everything” to deliver food assistance in Gaza, current supplies only meet 47 percent of the intended target.
According to the UN agency, around 500,000 people are now on the “brink of famine”, and that only a ceasefire would allow food assistance to be scaled up to the required levels.
“Organised distributions, and WFP-supported hot meals & bakeries can’t restart without far more aid,” it said in a post on X.
📍#Gaza: WFP teams are doing everything they can to deliver food assistance. But it remains far below needs - just 47% of our daily target.
Organized distributions, and WFP-supported hot meals & bakeries can’t restart without far more aid.
📣Half a million people are on the… pic.twitter.com/0nYEXJj3pQ
— World Food Programme (@WFP) August 17, 2025
