The UN’s top official for humanitarian aid in Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, has issued a stark warning that the international community is failing innocent civilians in the region.
According to the BBC, Kaag, who has served as the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Action and Reconstruction in Gaza for nine months, described the situation as a “significant catastrophe” ahead of a report she will present to the UN Security Council.
“We’re not meeting the needs, let alone creating prospects and hope for the civilians in Gaza,” Kaag said, adding that her upcoming report would be “very sombre and perhaps dark.”
Despite efforts by the UN to deliver assistance through multiple land and sea routes, Kaag highlighted that the systems are not functioning adequately to ensure safe aid delivery.
She noted that “deconfliction,” a process designed to safeguard humanitarian missions, was failing: “It’s not working, or working insufficiently, to render the operations feasible.”
Kaag described Gaza as “the most unsafe place in the world to work” and expressed deep regret that improvements would be impossible without a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages.
She also pointed to food insecurity in Gaza, dismissing Israeli officials’ claims that enough aid is being delivered.
“The majority of the population is food insecure,” she said, reaffirming confidence in UN operations’ integrity.
Kaag noted, “There is not a day, not a second to lose,” calling for urgent action to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.
She described Unrwa – the UN’s largest aid agency working in Gaza – as “the backbone of the totality of UN delivery.”
Netanyahu has accused the agency of being “totally infiltrated” by Hamas and has called for it to be “terminated.”
Ms. Kaag said investigations had taken place into Israeli allegations that Unrwa staff were involved in Hamas’s unprecedented attacks of 7 October across southern Israel and that whenever evidence was provided, investigations would continue.
Last month, the agency fired nine UNRWA workers – it had previously sacked 12 employees and put seven others on administrative leave, out of its Gaza workforce of 13,000.
Ms Kaag, a former Dutch deputy prime minister who first worked on Israeli-Palestinian issues 30 years ago, says she is often asked by Gazans during her visits there: “When will our suffering end?”
She spoke of the deep trauma of this conflict, including for Israeli hostages, and expressed hope that all those working to resolve this crisis would be forgiven.
“If we’re too slow, too little, too late, and if they feel that we failed them, the only thing we can do is work even harder.”
But she underlined, “There is no compensation for lives lost and trauma incurred; nothing will make that right.”
