Two years of Gaza-Israel war bring ‘indescribable’ pain: UN humanitarians

07 October 2025

Two years since the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel, UN humanitarians on Tuesday reiterated calls for the release of all hostages in Gaza, an immediate ceasefire and an aid surge to alleviate Palestinians’ suffering, as talks on a US-driven peace plan continued in Egypt.

“The pain is indescribable” on the anniversary of the “abhorrent” attacks, said UN relief chief Tom Fletcher, in a statement shared with media in Geneva by UN aid coordination office (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke.

“I renew my call for the unconditional, immediate release of all the hostages – and until then, they must be treated humanely,” Mr. Fletcher’s statement continued. “Civilians everywhere have to be protected.”

Mr. Fletcher underscored the fact that since 7 October 2023 tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and “hundreds of thousands endure starvation and displacement”.

More than 1,250 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the attacks while more than 250 others were taken hostage. More than 66,000 Palestinians have subsequently been killed in the war in Gaza according to local health authorities.

The UN relief chief also renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for humanitarian aid to “flow freely at the scale needed”.

Highlighting the continuing obstacles to aid delivery, OCHA’s Mr. Laerke said that over the past two years, out of more than 8,000 requests for humanitarian missions inside Gaza where coordination with the Israeli authorities was needed, 45 per cent were denied or impeded en route.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also noted that teams in Gaza are still waiting for a green light to fetch incubators and ventilators for premature babies evacuated from the north of the Strip.

“We’ve managed to move [the babies] to another facility when the hospital they were in needed to be evacuated, but we haven’t managed to move the incubators… it’s been denied so far,” said spokesperson Ricardo Pires.

The go-ahead “to move our convoys to pick up those incubators [is] not being given because of safety and military operations happening on the ground”, Mr. Pires explained.

“One in every five [children] born in Gaza is born premature without the infrastructure to receive them and keep them safe and alive,” he stressed. “We’re talking about children sharing oxygen masks in order to stay alive.”

The UNICEF spokesperson went on to say that 61,000 children have reportedly been either killed or maimed “since the horrors Hamas unleashed in Israel and what followed after the disproportionate response from Israel, that is still ongoing”.

“That’s an average of one child either killed or maimed every 17 minutes,” he said, “an unacceptable, staggering figure”.

Mr. Pires deplored the fact that children have been “suffering in their bodies and their minds for way too long”, traumatized and “exposed to horrors that no child should ever have to look at or live”.

Famine and malnutrition are part of daily life in Gaza and World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Christian Lindmeier recalled that over half a million people are trapped in the famine in Gaza, as per the latest UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report in August. He said that “640,000 people [are] facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity” and that WHO has verified 400 malnutrition-related deaths, including those of 101 children.

“We know that most indicators are worsening,” said UNICEF’s Mr. Pires, warning that the famine that was declared in Gaza City “is slowly moving to the South as more people get displaced, leaving what is now again a combat zone”.

Referring to the peace plan put forward by US President Donald Trump, which has been the object of negotiations in Egypt for a second day straight, Mr. Pires welcomed “the plans by the US Government which bring a glimpse of hope to the region and to civilians and children in Gaza, that a better future is ahead”.

His words echoed those of UN Secretary-General António Guterres who, in a statement on Monday, said that the recent proposal by the US President “presents an opportunity to that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end”.