The United Nations Security Council holds a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza at the UN headquarters in New York, July 16, 2025. The UN-led humanitarian response in Gaza has been sidelined since the breakdown of the ceasefire in March, even though the world body was doing a good job, said UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Xie E)
UNITED NATIONS, July 16 (Xinhua) -- The UN-led humanitarian response in Gaza has been sidelined since the breakdown of the ceasefire in March, even though the world body was doing a good job, said UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell on Wednesday.
"For the last several months, the UN-led humanitarian response has been sidelined despite the fact that during the March ceasefire, we were delivering assistance in an efficient and safe manner," she told a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Essential vaccines and neonatal care, lifesaving nutrition services, and access to clean water were affected, she said, and asked members of the Security Council to ensure that UNICEF and their humanitarian partners are allowed to do their jobs.
"We have proven that essentials like medicine, vaccines, water, food, and nutrition for babies can reach those in need, wherever they are, when we have appropriate access. We urgently need a return to the functioning UN-led aid pipeline with safe and sustained humanitarian access through all available (border) crossings," said Russell.
Also, she reiterated the UN secretary-general's appeal to ensure that all aid delivery is demilitarized and grounded in the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.
Russell was referring to the militarized mode of humanitarian aid distribution carried out by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, run by the United States, which set up four sites in the whole of Gaza in restricted Israeli military zones where starving civilians enter through fenced lanes under the eyes of armed security contractors.
Between May 27 and July 7, the UN Human Rights Office recorded the killings of 798 Palestinian civilians, including children, desperate to find food at or near distribution sites and humanitarian convoys, she said.
More than 17,000 children have reportedly been killed and 33,000 injured in Gaza since the outbreak of the war in October 2023, an average of 28 children have been killed each day, said Russell. "Consider that for a moment. A whole classroom of children killed, every day for nearly two years."
In Gaza, the effects of the violence perpetrated on children have been catastrophic. International law is clear: all parties to the conflict must protect civilians and ensure the safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance, she said while also calling for unimpeded humanitarian access and a ceasefire, as well as efforts to put an end to the war. ■
UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell (C, front) speaks at a UN Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza at the UN headquarters in New York, July 16, 2025. The UN-led humanitarian response in Gaza has been sidelined since the breakdown of the ceasefire in March, even though the world body was doing a good job, said UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Xie E)
