29 April 2025
From Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner-General as posted on his official X account (previously known as Twitter)
“I wished for death to end the nightmare I was living through”.
Received this awful testimony from a colleague who was rounded up in Gaza tortured while in Israeli detention and finally released.
For UNRWA staff humanitarian duty is met with brutality.
Since the start of the war in October 2023, over 50 UNRWA staff among them teachers, doctors, social workers, have been detained and abused.
They have been treated in the most shocking and inhumane way. They reported being beaten up and used as human shields.
They were subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to them and their families and attacks by dogs.
Many were subjected to forced confessions.
This is nothing short of harrowing and outrageous.
Humanitarian workers are not a target. Their suffering must not be ignored.
There must be justice and accountability for the crimes and violations of international law committed in the Gaza Strip.
Justice for those serving on the humanitarian frontlines is not an option, it is an obligation.
Document Sources: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
Subject: Armed conflict, Human rights and international humanitarian law, Humanitarian relief
Publication Date: 29/04/2025
URL source: https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/unrwa-commissioner-general-gaza-unrwa-staff-humanitarian-duty-met-with-brutality