The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence on attacks around aid sites in Gaza
“There must be a prompt and impartial investigation into each of these attacks, and those responsible held to account. Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime,” he added.
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism. This militarized system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned,” Laurence said.
“The wilful impediment of access to food and other life sustaining relief supplies for civilians may constitute a war crime. The threat of starvation, together with 20 months of killing of civilians and destruction on a massive scale, repeated forced displacements, intolerable, dehumanizing rhetoric and threats by Israel’s leadership to empty the Strip of its population, also constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law,” the spokesperson said.
“In 2024 the International Court of Justice found that there was a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” he stated.
“The Court issued binding orders on Israel to take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza. There is no justification for failing to comply with these obligations,” Laurence said.
END
For more information and media requests, please contact:
Ravina Shamdasani - + 41 22 917 9169 / ravina.shamdasani@un.org or
Liz Throssell - + 41 22 917 9296 / elizabeth.throssell@un.org or
Jeremy Laurence - + 41 22 917 9383 / jeremy.laurence@un.org
Tag and share
Facebook unitednationshumanrights
Instagram @unitednationshumanrights
STORY: UN Human Rights Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence on attacks around aid sites in Gaza
TRT: 03:41
SOURCE: OHCHR/UNOG
RESTRICTIONS: None
LANGUAGE: English /NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 03 June 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior shot: Palais des Nations
- Cut away: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable. For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured.”
- Cut away: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “There must be a prompt and impartial investigation into each of these attacks, and those responsible held to account. Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime.”
- Cut away: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism. This militarized system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned.”
- Cut away: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “The willful impediment of access to food and other life sustaining relief supplies for civilians may constitute a war crime. The threat of starvation, together with 20 months of killing of civilians and destruction on a massive scale, repeated forced displacements, intolerable, dehumanizing rhetoric and threats by Israel’s leadership to empty the Strip of its population, also constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law.”
- Cut away: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “In 2024 the International Court of Justice found that there was a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
Cut away: briefing room
SOUNDBITE (English)— Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: "The Court issued binding orders on Israel to take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza. There is no justification for failing to comply with these obligations,”
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN rights chief urges de-escalation in Tigray amid rising tensions and violence.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNICEF , WHO , OHCHR
In Sudan, sick and starving children ‘wasting away’ – UN humanitarians
Relentless violence, famine and disease are picking off Sudan’s children while attacks on healthcare and a lack of aid access hamper efforts to help them, UN humanitarian agencies warned on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Monday gave an update to the Human Rights Council on the situation in El Fasher, Sudan.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
“A series of new Israeli operations and settlement plans in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, risk seriously undermining the viability of a Palestinian state and the realisation of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination,” the UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told the bi-weekly press conference in Geneva today.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNIS
UN voices concern over chemical spraying incident on Lebanon’s Blue Line
The UN reiterated concerns on Friday at reports that Israeli forces sprayed herbicide over areas north of the Blue Line separating Lebanon from Israel. The development poses a “serious humanitarian risk” to civilians living there, said the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), briefing journalists in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | WHO
Gaza: Five patients evacuated as Rafah reopens while ‘too many stayed behind’ – WHO
As time is running out for thousands of critically ill patients in Gaza, hope is alive for medical evacuations to increase with the reopening of the Rafah crossing in the southern part of the Strip, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNOG , OHCHR
This Sunday marks five years of crisis in Myanmar. Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights, and James Rodehaver, chief of the Myanmar team, today spoke on the conduct of recent military-imposed elections, deploring the failure to respect the fundamental human rights of the country’s citizens. The process served only to exacerbate violence and societal polarization.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNICEF
Brutal Gaza war erased years of progress on education, in an “assault on the future itself” – UNICEF
Restoring Gaza’s shattered education system is “lifesaving” and getting children back into schools must be an immediate priority, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , HRC
Volker Türk, the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, made the following remarks during a briefing to a Special Session on Iran at the Human Rights Council.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA , UNOPS , UNIS
Amid the launch of President Trump's Board of Peace and reconstruction talks on Gaza, UN aid agencies insisted on Friday that what Gazans need most is immediate relief from the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe there.
2
6
1
2
Edited News , Press Conferences , Images | HRC
At UN, war crimes probe pledges to continue to work for all impacted by Hamas-Israel conflict
As President Trump launched the international Board of Peace plan for Gaza on Thursday, top independent rights experts tasked by the UN Human Rights Council with investigating grave abuses linked to the Hamas-Israel war pledged to continue their work seeking justice and accountability for all.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said Tuesday UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk was outraged by the repeated large-scale attacks by the Russian Federation on energy infrastructure in Ukraine.