By Unib Rashid

Good evening.

It is a great pleasure to be here at the Geneva Graduate Institute and to address all of you at the end of my  tenure as Commissioner-General of UNRWA – the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees.

Before the war in Gaza, not many people outside the United Nations and the Middle East were familiar with UNRWA, despite its massive regional workforce of nearly 30,000 people delivering education, primary healthcare and social services across the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Since October 2023, however, UNRWA has become a bellwether for the changes sweeping across the Middle East and the multilateral system that has been in place since the end of World War II. 

The international commitment to human rights and international law – so painstakingly fostered over three quarters of a century – is challenged today in ways that dangerously threaten our rules-based international order.

Tonight, I want to share with you what it has been like to lead an organisation on the frontlines of the war in Gaza, and under severe attack by the Israeli government and those who blindly support its objective of ending UNRWA.

Let me start on 7 October 2023 – I was at home when I received the news of the abhorrent attacks on Israel.

I think we all remember where we were and what we were doing that day.

It is impossible to overstate the impact of these attacks, and the brutal war on Gaza that followed.

In my final lecture as UNRWA Commissioner-General, at the Geneva Graduate Institute, I said that gross violations of international law in conflict are not new. But what is new is that these violations are no longer hidden — they are even committed with pride.

The world must not… pic.twitter.com/EpQuP7Azwe

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) March 25, 2026

The attacks by Hamas on Israel triggered a deep, collective, and intergenerational trauma.

The shock and horror of the massacres and abductions reverberated across Europe, North America and elsewhere, polarising societies on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The most intense bombardment of a civilian population since World War II followed, transforming Gaza into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The war had been going on for almost four weeks when I visited Gaza in early November 2023 – I was the first senior UN official to do so.

A total siege had been imposed and nothing was entering the Strip.

People lacked everything.

I visited one of our schools in Rafah sheltering thousands of displaced civilians.

There, I met a young girl – she might have been 7 or 8 years old –  the same age as my youngest child.

She was sheltering in the school in which she used to study.  

She stood in front of me,  begging me for a sip of water and a piece of bread.

The despair in her eyes still haunts me.

This was just the beginning of the war.

Since then, Gaza has been reduced to rubble, countless atrocities have been committed, people have been  forced to move like pin balls, fleeing death and unable to bury or grieve their loved ones.

And then, a new low.

Despite our outrage whenever  famine occurs, our aspiration to prevent it, and despite repeated  warnings from food security experts, the Israelis imposed a strict siege and did not allow food to enter Gaza.

Food  was weaponized, and hunger  spread and deepened to the extent that  famine was declared for more than half a million people in Gaza City. 

A man-made famine.

To add a layer of cruelty, thousands of starving people were forced to seek assistance at the infamous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites.

They were death traps.

Nearly 2,000 hungry people were killed at these sites while desperately seeking food.

Finally, after  at least 72,000 people were violently killed, and with thousands more unaccounted for under the rubble,  a ceasefire was declared in October last year.

A ceasefire in name only.

I say this because  military operations have killed more than 650 people since then.

 As we enter a new phase of the ceasefire, Gaza’s battered population has little cause for optimism.

Their future lies in the hands of the Board of Peace – an unaccountable body that the Security Council has empowered to deal with the future of Gaza.

I fear that what awaits Palestinians is not a glossy future in the Gaza Riviera, but a state of prolonged misery in which they struggle to survive in a land that is lost to them.

Beyond Gaza, the annexation of the occupied West Bank is progressing steadily.

Over the last year, Israeli security operations have displaced Palestinians from camps at levels not seen since 1967.

Public infrastructure is systematically destroyed so Palestinians cannot return, and the demography of camps is permanently altered.

Israeli settler violence is at unprecedented levels and goes largely unchecked, while settlements expand aggressively in defiance of international law.

Governments across the world continue paying lip-service to the two-State solution, but a political answer to the question of Palestine has never been more elusive.

And now let me talk of UNRWA – a United Nations agency established in 1948 as a temporary, stop-gap measure until a political solution could be found for the Palestinian people.

For decades, Israel considered the Agency a necessary evil.

It disagreed with UNRWA’s “raison d’etre” but recognized that it was key to promoting stability among Palestine Refugee communities by providing essential services.

This  changed after October 7.

UNRWA became an unnecessary evil.

Eliminating UNRWA became an objective of the war.

The Israeli government insists that Hamas is Gaza, Gaza is UNRWA, and UNRWA must therefore be Hamas.

All at war.

Within two months of the start of the war,130 of my colleagues had been killed.

On 8 December 2023, I  wrote to the President of the United Nations General Assembly a letter I had never had cause to write in 35 years of working in conflicts – a letter predicting that more of my colleagues would be killed.

I knew more would be killed but not how many.

The number of colleagues killed since I wrote that letter has tripled.

Many died alongside their children.

Many others have sustained life-changing injuries.

And many were arbitrarily detained and tortured.

During the siege, our staff were not spared.

I received many reports of colleagues fainting from hunger while working in our clinics and shelters.

And over the last two years, hundreds of UNRWA premises in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

The parliament of Israel adopted legislation to end UNRWA’s presence in occupied East Jerusalem, including by forcibly shutting schools and health clinics.

The UNRWA headquarters was seized, looted and set on fire, with senior Israeli officials celebrating the destruction on site and online.

A deputy mayor of Jerusalem called for UNRWA personnel to be “annihilated”.

A well-orchestrated disinformation campaign alleges Agency-wide neutrality breaches, including infiltration by Hamas, and claims that UNRWA is no longer operational in the occupied Palestinian territory.

These malicious assertions, which have been repeatedly debunked, are intended to erode international support for UNRWA, weakening Palestinians’ rights within Final Status issues in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Looking ahead, UNRWA remains the largest, best-established, most cost-effective UN humanitarian and development presence in a region in crisis.

It is also a vital resource for protecting the rights of Palestine Refugees across the region and addressing the long-standing question of Palestine.

Last week, I wrote again to the President of the General Assembly and urged Member States to leverage UNRWA’s workforce and expertise as key assets for the successful implementation of Security Council resolution 2803.

This would avoid a repeat of the disastrous mistake of removing the entire civil administration in Iraq in 2003, devastating prospects for recovery and durable peace.

But without immediate and robust political and financial support, UNRWA will soon reach the end of its viability.

This would have immense consequences for the future rights of Palestinians, as well as for an already unstable region.

***

It is astonishing that UNRWA – a United Nations agency –  has been allowed to be crushed, in violation of international law, with total impunity, and with UN staff and Palestinian communities paying an unacceptable price.

The gross violations of international law in conflict are not new.

What is new is that these violations are no longer hidden.

These violations are claimed, committed with pride.

Like the war trophy selfies taken by Israeli soldiers while destroying schools or humiliating civilians in Gaza.

What is new is the sense of total impunity, that rules do not apply even if it leads to a new form of barbarism. 

The fact that these violations have gone unanswered has further compromised international NGOs and media in the OPT and will undoubtedly compromise humanitarian and human rights work everywhere.

The events on and after 7 October 2023 have generated seismic changes.

We are living in dangerous and unpredictable times.

The abject failure to muster an effective multilateral and international law-based response in Gaza has enabled a war outside international legal boundaries that is now spreading across and beyond the Middle East.

It has normalised disdain for the rules-based international order.

The Geneva Conventions were put in place more than 75 years ago to protect civilians and non-combatants during conflict – a set of rules on which we all agreed.

But do we still?

Today, the Conventions are so undermined that they are at risk of becoming irrelevant.

The lack of meaningful action in defence of international law is weakening the foundations of multilateralism, with serious consequences.

It is fuelling resentment in the Global South, where many perceive that the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in international law do not apply equally, and certainly not when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

International humanitarian law is losing its universality.

Many participants in Davos and Munich this year warned that we are experiencing a rupture of the rules-based order and that a new order is emerging.

Even countries that identify as ardent defenders of international law are downplaying its weight, barely concealing that it is applied selectively depending on the accused  and the victims.

Our leaders in government are not fighting back, they feel intimidated and powerless.

They are failing in their responsibilities by giving into economic or military bullying and threats.

We must ask ourselves how we arrived at this juncture, where broadly accepted rules and shared values are so fundamentally contested.

***

Back to Gaza.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is  revealing  a highly concerning deficit of mutual empathy and deeply entrenched prejudice.

These attitudes have been fostered over decades, through competing narratives anchored in divergent beliefs about what triggered the conflict.

Narratives that have often been cynically exploited to gain and maintain political power.

Today, Israelis and Palestinians are neighbours who no longer know each other, divided by war and growing isolation.

It is both tragic and ironic, because Palestinians and Israelis share a long and profound history of oppression, grief and loss that most of us could not begin to imagine or understand.

I am often asked how we should respond to the profound challenges confronting the rules-based international order.

Is there a balance to be struck between holding firm to principle, and pragmatic accommodation?

While compromise is a central tenet of resolving conflicts, I believe that core principles and values cannot be negotiated.

For humanitarians, our ability to provide lifesaving assistance depends on strict adherence to the principles of humanity, independence, impartiality, and neutrality.

We cannot, under any circumstances, be part of efforts that flout these principles by discriminating against people in need of assistance or politicizing human suffering.

Wars and humanitarian crises are deeply complex.

To navigate them effectively, we must maintain clarity regarding our purpose and be guided by commonly agreed principles.

However, this is not enough.

We also have an obligation to call out violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Even when it is inconvenient and uncomfortable.

Even when violations are committed by friends and allies.

Even when it comes at a professional and personal cost.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded us of the moral imperative to act against injustice when he stated that “to be silent in the face of oppression is to choose the side of the oppressor.”

Silence is complicity.

So is inaction.

My colleagues at UNRWA have spoken out forcefully against the horrors and indignities that Palestinians have endured in Gaza.  

UNRWA has loudly and repeatedly raised the alarm regarding violations of international humanitarian law and the United Nations Charter.

We have identified these violations as part of a longstanding political project to separate Palestinians from Palestine.

Our information has helped to create an evidence base for the rulings of the International Court of Justice.

To be vocal is a choice, and, in my view, a duty.

***

In conclusion, rising populism and bigotry are a threat to human rights and the rule of law, which underpin our collective security and prosperity.

International solidarity around our shared values is needed now more than ever and each of us has a role to play.

The primary responsibility for addressing humanitarian challenges and political crises lies with Member States, all of which are obliged to uphold international law.

Where quiet diplomacy and public expressions of concern and condemnation fail to influence the actions of a rogue government, alternative measures should be considered.

These measures range from political, diplomatic and economic sanctions to legal actions.

In the context of Gaza, it is imperative that we reject attempts to undermine and marginalize the United Nations and other humanitarian actors.

We must also demand a political pathway that safeguards the rights of Palestinians and finally addresses the question of Palestine.

***

There is no doubt that these are dangerous and unpredictable times.

But we do not have the luxury of despair or inaction.

We must act — not belatedly, but now — to mobilise a broad coalition genuinely committed to uphold international law and to defend multilateralism.

We must persist in a vigorous defence of our common humanity and shared values.

Thank you.