Ms. Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator - Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, 29 August 2024

New York, 29 August 2024

As delivered

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, Members of the Council, thank you for this opportunity to brief you on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

First, allow me to echo the Secretary-General’s deep concern about the latest deterioration in the occupied West Bank, and his call for the immediate cessation of these operations.

Mr. President, the situation in Gaza is beyond desperate. Since 7 October last year, we have briefed this Council on the unconscionable suffering of civilian women, men and children on more than a dozen occasions.

We have repeatedly informed you of the harrowing levels of death, injury, and destruction that raise very serious concerns about compliance with international humanitarian law.

To date, more than a thousand people have been killed in Israel including on October 7, and 108 hostages remain in captivity, their conditions and treatment is a matter of serious concern.

More than 40,000 people have been killed and over 93,000 injured in Gaza – many of them women and children – according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

And more than 17,000 Palestinian children are unaccompanied or separated from their relatives and guardians.

Reports of ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israel are mounting.

And already challenged, our humanitarian response is facing unparalleled difficulty.

In the past week alone, our teams have been displaced and shot at. We have lost offices and warehouses, and limited supplies have continued to dwindle.

World Food Programme colleagues were fired upon two days ago in their marked vehicle and survived by sheer luck.

We cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance because we struggle to know what supplies we will have, when we will have them or where we will be able to deliver. The lives of 2.1 million people cannot depend on luck and hope alone.

Mr. President, evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military have spiked, with devastating impacts on civilians. So far this month 16 of these orders have been issued. Between 19 and 24 August alone, five such orders were issued - the largest number of orders issued in a single week since the start of this crisis.

These orders impacted a quarter of a million people in 33 neighbourhoods in Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza.

Al Aqsa hospital – one of the last functioning of the larger hospitals in Gaza – as well as health clinics, water wells, a desalination plant, and a water reservoir, were all affected by these latest orders. Water production in Deir al Balah has been reduced by around 85 per cent.

The subsequent evacuation order on 25 August led to the largest relocation of UN staff since we were forced to leave northern Gaza in October 2023. In the past few days, some 200 staff were impacted along with nine UN guesthouses, four UN warehouses and six NGO guesthouses.

More than 88 per cent of Gaza’s territory has come under an order to evacuate at some point. Communities live in a state of limbo, never knowing when the next order to flee will come. And civilians are being forced into an ever-smaller area, now equivalent to just 11 per cent of the territory of Gaza.

It is difficult to put into words the immense struggle people are facing to find shelter and other essentials.

Any and every square foot of available land is being used for shelter. Temporary encampments have even been built on the beach right up to the water’s edge. The evacuation orders appear to defy the requirements of international humanitarian law.

It therefore comes as some relief to hear this morning that following calls by the UN and Member States, the Israeli military has issued a reversal of orders for three blocks in the southern neighborhoods of Deir al-Balah. This is the first time evacuation orders have been reversed since the start of the conflict. Our teams are working to confirm if we can now return to the premises we had to leave on 25 August.

Mr. President, civilians are hungry. They are thirsty. They are sick. They are homeless. They have been pushed beyond the limits of endurance – beyond what any human being should bear.

The UN and our humanitarian partners continue to do what we can under the leadership of the Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr. Muhannad Hadi. We remain on the ground, planning as best we can in these extreme circumstances.

Despite insufficient stocks, our partners continue to provide assistance and protection services. This includes food and health care consultations; when possible, it includes shelter materials; and amid the destruction, they are creating spaces for children to learn.

And as we will hear from my colleague, Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. [Michael] Ryan, the humanitarian community is working relentlessly to stop the spread of polio, a disease that the world thought it had under control.

Israel has facilitated the entry of all requested polio vaccines, along with the equipment required to implement the immunization campaign. What is now most important is to ensure both the security and access needed to implement the campaign effectively.

I don’t need to tell you how disastrous it would be if we were unable to contain this preventable disease – a disease that knows no borders.

The same access must be afforded to all life-sustaining supplies and services in Gaza.

We welcome the tireless efforts of the Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator, and her engagement with regional states and the Government of Israel to streamline assistance into Gaza under Security Council Resolution 2720, and her advocacy for the safety and security of humanitarian workers and an enabling environment for scaling up humanitarian operations.

Mr. President, what we have witnessed over the past 11 months – and continue to witness – calls into question the world’s commitment to the international legal order that was designed to prevent these tragedies. It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?

In the face of this unconscionable human suffering, we need the Security Council – and all Member States – to act. This is all the more urgent as tensions flare dangerously across other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the region.

We need strict adherence to international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

All hostages must be released without conditions. Civilians must be protected, and their essential needs must be met, including by ensuring the unhindered provision of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza.

We appeal to Council Members and all Member States to use the leverage available to them to ensure respect for international law, combat impunity, and reach an immediate cessation of hostilities and a sustained ceasefire in Gaza.

Thank you.