Gaza is the most dangerous place for aid workers

The UN official announced at the Security Council meeting on issues related to the protection of humanitarian workers in conflict zones based on Resolution 2730 that 2024 was the worst year for humanitarian workers, with an unprecedented number of them losing their lives in conflicts.

He added: 377 aid workers and humanitarian workers lost their lives in conflicts in 20 countries around the world, while this number was about 100 in 2023. Many have also been subjected to rape, arbitrary detention and abduction.

The UN official stressed that the Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world for humanitarian workers. On 30 March, teams from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Palestine Red Crescent Society recovered the bodies of 15 aid workers from a mass grave in Rafah, where they were massacred by Israeli forces while trying to save the lives of civilians.

He said that the number of humanitarian workers who have lost their lives in Gaza since 7 October 2023 during Israeli attacks has reached more than 408, and that Gaza is the most dangerous place for aid workers and humanitarian workers.

The UN official asked the Security Council what it would do to help us find a solution to achieve justice and prevent more aid workers from being killed. There are sufficient international frameworks to protect humanitarian and UN workers, such as human rights laws and standards, agreements on the activities of the UN and its staff in different countries, and international humanitarian law that emphasize the protection of humanitarian workers, but what is missing is the political will to implement these obligations.

He noted that the majority of humanitarian and relief victims in different places are local aid workers. We also see double standards in the media when it comes to reporting on the killing of humanitarian workers. Murder and kidnapping are not the only fates that many humanitarian workers face, but some governments and regimes criminalize the work of aid workers and accuse them of terrorism, and there is a misleading media campaign in some areas, such as the occupied Palestinian territories, calling aid workers terrorists and targeting them.