Peace for Gaza: UN employees break their silence

Hundreds of UN employees gathered at Place des Nations in Geneva to protest the targeting of humanitarian aid workers in Gaza.

According to UN data, since the start of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, around 543 aid workers have been killed, including 373 UN staff and affiliates. The Gaza war has become the deadliest conflict in the UN’s 80-year history.

Documents reveal that the United States and Israel have sent letters of complaint to senior UN officials, challenging the neutrality of UN staff regarding the Gaza war.

UN employees carried placards reading “Peace for Gaza” and “UN staff must not be targeted”. They also placed more than 370 white roses beside a memorial plaque in Geneva; each rose representing a UN aid worker killed in the Gaza war.

Nathalie Meynet, President of the UN Refugee Agency Staff Council, said during the protest: “Today, UN staff have gathered to say: enough is enough.”

Several hundred people participated in the protest and held a one-minute silence outside the UN headquarters in Geneva. Some wore keffiyehs.

Earlier, hundreds of employees of the office of Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had written a letter urging him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an ongoing genocide.

The letter stated that staff believe the legal criteria for genocide have been met in Israel’s nearly two-year-long war on Gaza, citing the scale, scope, and nature of the documented violations there.

In a letter signed by the UN Staff Committee on behalf of more than 500 employees, they called on Türk to take a clear and public stance, stating: “The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights bears a heavy legal and moral responsibility to condemn acts of genocide.”