The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday that the killing of aid workers in Gaza by the Israeli occupation army is evidence of the “unconscionable brutality of the conflict.”

This came at a session held by the UN Security Council at the request of Algeria to discuss the situation in Gaza following the killing of seven relief workers from the World Central Kitchen organization in several air strikes launched by the Israeli army.

During the session, the Council heard two briefings by the Director of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Ramesh Rajasingham, and the President of Save the Children, Janti Sowerpto.

Rajasingham said in his speech that the killing of aid workers in the World Central Kitchen on April 1 “was not just a tragedy for the dead aid workers and their families and friends, but it was also a tragedy for the residents of Gaza.”

Rajasingham expressed his regret, saying, “We cannot say that this tragic attack was an isolated incident in this conflict,” explaining that the dead join more than 220 of our humanitarian colleagues who were killed, 179 of whom were United Nations employees.

He pointed out that the undeniable lack of protection for relief missions had forced the World Central Kitchen and the non-governmental relief organization ANERA to suspend their operations, as the two organizations supply hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza with food every week.

The UN official said, "Six months of death, destruction, deprivation, trauma and unimaginable suffering for the people of Gaza - six months that put our collective humanity and priorities into question."

For her part, Swerpto said in her speech that what she saw and heard in Gaza “was degrading to humanity, not only for the residents of Gaza, but it is something that strips all of us of our humanity if we stand idly by and allow this to happen.”

Swerpto added, during her recent visit to the Gaza Strip, that children are “running everywhere desperately searching for food and water because not enough is allowed into Gaza,” and they are clearly suffering from malnutrition.

She indicated that 14,000 children were killed in this conflict “unnecessarily and violently, and thousands more are missing and are presumed to be buried under the rubble.”

She confirmed that the number of children killed in this conflict is greater than the number of children killed in all armed conflicts worldwide during the past four years.

She warned that if all parties to the conflict continue to “flagrantly violate” the rules of war and international humanitarian law and be completely unaccountable, “the next set of mass deaths of children in Gaza will not be caused by bullets and bombs, but by hunger and malnutrition.”

Swerpto urged the international community to grant humanitarian workers safe access and cease the fire.

The head of Save the Children stressed that those sitting in the Security Council hall have the necessary tools to address this crisis, but they only lack the political will to use them.