Archiv: Martin Griffiths


23.07.2025 - 17:07 [ Middle East Eye ]

Former UN aid chief: Israel committing ‘worst crime of the 21st century’ in Gaza

“There can frankly be very little doubt that we are seeing starvation and hunger as an instrument of the war,” he told MEE.

“There is no prior experience in my five decades of humanitarian experience that can come close to comparison to the horror we are all seeing in Gaza,” he said.

“The UN announcement, based on serious hospital data, that people are fainting in the street from hunger and malnutrition, tells us all we need to know.

“It is a historic fact that children die first in these circumstances. Our humanity cannot believe our eyes.”

Israel’s siege on Gaza since 2 March has blocked the entry of humanitarian supplies by the UN and its partner organisations to the enclave, bringing the 2.1 million population to the brink of famine.

07.04.2024 - 22:28 [ NewArab.com ]

Gaza onslaught ‚betrayal of humanity‘, UN humanitarian chief says, after six months of Israel war

In a statement on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the war, Martin Griffiths, the outgoing under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, called for a „collective determination that there be a reckoning for this betrayal of humanity.“

„Each day, this war claims more civilian victims,“ said Griffiths, who will leave his post at the end of June due to health reasons.

„Every second that it continues sows the seeds of a future so deeply obscured by this relentless conflict.“

06.12.2023 - 06:10 [ World Health Organization / Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) ]

WHO appeals for protection of the health system from further attacks and degradation of its capacity

(04.12.2023)

We have seen what happened in northern Gaza. This cannot be the blueprint for the south. Gaza cannot afford to lose another hospital as health needs continue to soar.

As more civilians in southern Gaza receive immediate evacuation orders and are forced to move, more people are being concentrated into smaller areas, while the remaining hospitals in those areas run without sufficient fuel, medicines, food, water, or protection of health workers.

06.12.2023 - 06:02 [ United Nations ]

Desperation intensifies in Gaza amid uncertainty of ‘safe zones’

Speaking from the southern city of Rafah, Dr. Rick Peeperkorn, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, described further bloodshed after the resumption of Israeli bombing last Friday.

“The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Dr. Peeperkorn told journalists in Geneva via video link. “I mean…there’s intensified bombing going on all around and including here in the southern areas, Khan Younis and even in Rafah.”

06.12.2023 - 05:53 [ Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator / Twitter ]

Every time we think things cannot get any more apocalyptic in #Gaza, they do.

(04.12.2023)

06.12.2023 - 05:51 [ CNN ]

Israel expands war into southern Gaza as UN warns of ‘blatant disregard for basic humanity’

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops were operating in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis Tuesday as top officials at the United Nations warned of an “apocalyptic” situation in war-torn Gaza with “no place safe to go” for civilians.

“Every time we think things cannot get any more apocalyptic in Gaza, they do,” said Martin Griffiths, the top UN emergency relief official, in a statement on Monday. “People are being ordered to move again, with little to survive on, forced to make one impossible choice after another,” he said.

11.11.2023 - 00:25 [ Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator / Twitter ]

Acts of war in places of grace must stop. #Gaza

(5 hours ago)

18.10.2023 - 14:22 [ United Nations ]

Israel-Gaza: UN chief urges ceasefire, region ‘on the precipice’

Trucks carrying lifesaving aid remained lined up at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. In a post on social platform X on Wednesday, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus deplored that WHO supplies have been “stuck” at the border for four days.

“Every second we wait to get medical aid in, we lose lives,” he said.

Relentless diplomatic efforts by senior UN officials in favour of humanitarian access were set to continue, with the organization’s relief chief Martin Griffiths on the ground in Cairo, where he will be joined by Secretary-General Guterres on Thursday.