A Chorus of outcry: NGOs decry Israel's actions as Gaza faces unprecedented suffering
Shafaq News
The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza has reached levels that global aid organizations and rights watchdogs now describe as historically unprecedented. In response to the devastating toll of Israel's ongoing military campaign, a unified and escalating condemnation has emerged from leading international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Their reports document sweeping violations of international humanitarian law and collectively warn that Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian collapse of staggering proportions.
The war, now entering its second year, began following the attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Israel's military response has been both intense and prolonged, involving large-scale bombardments, ground invasions, and an unrelenting blockade of the Gaza Strip. Independent academic sources estimate that nearly 75,000 people have died violently in Gaza, surpassing official figures of 56,500 deaths reported by local authorities. Among the dead are more than 18,000 children, 12,400 women, and over 3,800 elderly individuals.
These numbers do not include the thousands of civilians who have died due to secondary factors such as malnutrition, untreated medical conditions, or preventable diseases resulting from the collapse of basic infrastructure.
International NGOs have sounded the alarm over what they describe as the systematic dismantling of essential services. Their warnings are not limited to statistics—they are deeply rooted in on-the-ground investigations, forensic analysis, and consistent eyewitness testimonies.
The Press: Erased Voices and Systematic Suppression
Journalists have been disproportionately affected, not merely as collateral casualties but as targeted victims of suppression. Reporters Without Borders has identified Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists.
At least 228 press workers have been killed, and the organization believes that 42 of those were killed directly due to their work. Media offices have been bombed. Recording equipment has been destroyed. Reporters have been killed in their homes, alongside their families, without warning or recourse.
RSF accuses Israeli forces of deliberately eradicating the means of independent reporting and public accountability. The group has filed multiple complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and has urged the United Nations Security Council to enforce Resolution 2222, which mandates the protection of journalists in conflict zones.
According to RSF's leadership, surviving journalists in Gaza are not only under physical threat but are also being silenced through blockades, blackouts, and the erasure of internet and communication access.
RSF is relieved to learn that @AlJazeera journalist Fadi al-Wahidi, seriously wounded by Israeli fire on 9 October 2024, was evacuated from #Gaza to Cairo. We reiterate our call for the protection of reporters and combatting impunity for crimes committed against them.
— RSF (@RSF_inter) February 9, 2025
The UN Secretary-General has echoed these concerns, stating that Gaza has become 'the deadliest place for journalists—and their families—on earth.'
Health and Healthcare Workers: A System Collapsed
The impact on Gaza's healthcare system is catastrophic and deliberate, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Amnesty International. Reports confirm that 1,411 medical staff have been killed since the beginning of hostilities. This includes not only doctors and nurses but also ambulance drivers, emergency technicians, and hospital administrators.
MSF emphasizes that hospitals have been hit repeatedly, with some entirely destroyed and others rendered non-operational due to a lack of fuel, water, or medical supplies.
Only 17 of Gaza's 36 hospitals were still functioning, even partially, by the end of 2024, as reported by Amnesty International. MSF describes scenes in which wounded civilians are treated without anesthesia, children suffer without therapeutic food, and patients die due to oxygen shortages or dialysis machine failures.
The destruction of Gaza's water and sanitation systems has further exacerbated health conditions. Outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases have been reported, particularly in shelters that are overcrowded and unsanitary.
MSF has gone so far as to describe the obstruction of aid and the targeting of healthcare infrastructure as 'patterns consistent with genocide.' Their field teams have called the current conditions in Gaza an intentional breakdown of medical services, engineered to render the population vulnerable to disease and death through neglect and deprivation.
People in Gaza are facing an unbearable dilemma: risk your family starving or risk your life to maybe get food at an Israeli-US distribution site.This is not humanitarian aid. It is slaughter. https://t.co/wr81qwjpFw
— MSF International (@MSF) June 29, 2025
Education: A Generation Denied
Gaza's educational infrastructure has all but collapsed. At least 800 education staff have been killed, according to data from the Ministry of Education. Schools have been either destroyed in airstrikes or repurposed as emergency shelters, many of them overcrowded and lacking basic hygiene. There are no functioning school schedules, no teachers left to lead classrooms, and no reliable electricity or internet to support remote learning.
Save the Children and UNESCO have documented the deep psychological impact this disruption is having on children and adolescents. Education is not merely interrupted; it has been dismantled. The consequences are long-term. An entire generation is growing up without access to schooling, not only damaging their futures but crippling the development potential of Palestinian society as a whole.
Children: Killed, Starved, and Forgotten
Among the most devastating aspects of this war is its impact on children. According to reports by Save the Children, more than 18,000 children have been killed, and many more have suffered grievous injuries, including amputations, burns, and permanent disabilities. Children make up a disproportionately high percentage of civilian casualties. Beyond the visible wounds, thousands of children are suffering from acute malnutrition, anemia, and psychological trauma.
UNICEF has reported that 96 percent of Gaza's child population—approximately one million children—are malnourished. Tens of thousands are at risk of dying from wasting, a severe form of malnutrition that weakens immunity and stunts growth. Routine vaccinations have come to a halt. Access to baby formula and pediatric medicine is nearly nonexistent.
The UN Secretary-General has described Gaza as 'a graveyard for children,' not just metaphorically, but in measurable, documentable terms.
Save the Children emphasizes that obstructing humanitarian aid is not only morally indefensible but also a clear violation of international law and a direct threat to the right to life.
Any war is a war on children. But right now, children in the Middle East are facing repeated cycles of violence. Recent Israeli and Iranian air strikes are adding to an already extremely volatile regional context. We need lasting peace and justice for every child now❤️ pic.twitter.com/OBarkFYfCT
— Save the Children International (@save_children) June 24, 2025
The Broader Humanitarian Picture: Siege, Famine, and Legal Reckoning
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is not an unintended consequence of war—it is, according to several NGOs, a strategy of war. Israel's blockade has severely restricted the flow of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies into the Strip. Aid organizations face extraordinary difficulties distributing assistance under active bombardment. Aid convoys are often targeted, and many aid workers have been killed.
2025 World Report explicitly states that Israel has 'killed, wounded, starved, and forcibly displaced Palestinian civilians in Gaza at a scale unprecedented in recent history.'
Nowhere in Gaza is safe. The @CIJ_ICJ 's order underlines the gravity of the situation in Gaza, where civilians are facing famine. Yet the Israeli government continues to flout the World Court's binding orders by obstructing the entry of lifesaving aid and services. pic.twitter.com/eHcPcqDHre
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) May 24, 2024
The organization classifies the mass displacement of civilians as a crime against humanity and argues that the denial of essentials such as water and food amounts to atrocity crimes, possibly even genocide.
Amnesty International has adopted similar language, concluding that 'Israel committed genocide in Gaza,' referencing both the high civilian death toll and the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid. Amnesty accuses Israel of inflicting conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians as a people, and describes the siege as a form of unlawful collective punishment. Amnesty warns that such policies constitute 'the war crime of using starvation as a weapon of warfare.'
More than half of Gaza's entire population are facing catastrophic levels of hunger. The humanitarian catastrophe in occupied Gaza has been caused by Israel's cruel policies that have deliberately deprived aid to Palestinians.
— Amnesty International (@amnesty) March 20, 2024
Doctors Without Borders continues to challenge the legitimacy of what it calls 'militarized aid schemes,' which it views as humanitarian theatre masking lethal intent. MSF advocates for the restoration of a neutral, UN-led humanitarian system and the dismantling of aid corridors controlled by armed forces. Without fuel for hospitals and water desalination plants, the most basic conditions for human survival are being stripped away.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has called the current humanitarian situation 'more dire than at any point in this long and brutal crisis.' He has reiterated that, as the occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to facilitate humanitarian relief. Instead, he says, 'aid operations are being strangled.' The result is a humanitarian emergency in which even aid workers are starving, and medical personnel are forced to choose who lives and who dies due to a lack of resources.
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