Aid groups warn of global inaction as UN finds genocide in Gaza
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Save the Children and Oxfam accuse global powers of enabling genocide after a UN probe found the Israeli regime committing atrocities in Gaza.
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Buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in the northern Gaza Strip during the sunset as seen from southern occupied Palestine, Tuesday, September 16, 2025 (AP)
The heads of two of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations have accused world leaders of complicity in genocide after a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded, for the first time, that the Israeli regime is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
The warning comes as more than 20 aid groups issued a joint statement Wednesday calling for urgent international intervention, describing Gaza as “deliberately made uninhabitable” amid mass displacement, famine, and bombardment that has killed at least 65,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children.
Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, said the UN finding is a turning point.
“While the Commission of Inquiry does not issue criminal convictions, it makes authoritative legal findings that carry significant evidentiary weight,” Alhendawi told Al Mayadeen English. “These findings provide a credible basis for advocacy and further legal action. Criminal accountability would require proceedings at the International Court of Justice or International Criminal Court.”
Alhendawi said governments had shown “a total dereliction of legal duty” over the 23-month war.
“Children in Gaza are being killed by arms from abroad,” he said. “While international governments profit from weapon sales, they risk playing their part in killing children. All States must immediately halt the transfer of weapons to the Israeli regime and Palestinian armed groups, while there is a risk they are used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law.”
With more than half a million people facing starvation, he warned that Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries were forcing families into “organized starvation.”
“Every child should have access to the aid and services they need to survive,” Alhendawi said. “Member States must unequivocally reject the new aid mechanism proposed by Israeli authorities, which facilitates the forcible transfer and starvation of children in Gaza.”
Pauline Chetcuti, Oxfam International’s Head of Humanitarian Advocacy, called the UN determination of genocide “momentous and welcome.”
“This marks the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date, and confirms what humanitarian and human rights organizations, Palestinian and Israeli alike, have been saying for months,” Chetcuti told Al Mayadeen English. States must live up to their obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent it—or risk charges of complicity.”
She described the situation in Gaza as “unconscionable.”
“Nine out of 10 people in Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been forcibly displaced, most multiple times, into shrinking pockets of land that cannot sustain human life,” Chetcuti said. “More than half a million people are starving. Hospitals, water treatment plants, and farmland have been systematically destroyed. This is an entirely man-made catastrophe.”
Both agencies accused powerful states of enabling the bloodshed through continued military trade with the Israeli occupation.
“When the US, UK, or EU continue business as usual with a government recognized as responsible for genocide, it shows that violence works,” Chetcuti said. “It fuels further atrocities and erodes the global rules-based order.”
Aid workers also warned of a mental health crisis among Gaza’s children, describing trauma so severe that some are unable to sleep, speak, or express a wish to die.
“Inflicting serious mental harm on the population is in line with the conclusion of genocide,” Alhendawi said. “Children tell us: ‘I wish I was in heaven because at least heaven has food.’ Parents whose children were torn to pieces speak of a pain more than anyone should be made to bear.”
The joint statement by more than 20 agencies, including Save the Children and Oxfam, urged governments to “use every available political, economic, and legal tool” to stop the war.
“If Member States continue to treat legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future,” the statement read. “History will judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing.”
