United Staff for Gaza Launches Memorial Project Honouring UN Staff Killed

PRESS RELEASE
United Staff for Gaza launches Memorial Project
23 October 2025

United Staff for Gaza announces the launch of its Memorial Project, an effort that will seek to honour the memory of United Nations personnel killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 through the erecting of a permanent monument to their sacrifice.

Never in the Organization's 80-year history have members of United Nations personnel been killed in such great numbers and with such great speed. This has constituted nothing less than an assault on the international civil service.

More than 370 members of UN personnel have been confirmed killed by the Israel Defense Forces since October 2023. There may yet be more that have gone unreported. Many have been killed along with their families and while fulfilling their duties mandated by Member States.

The vast majority of colleagues killed were Palestinians working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, commonly known as UNRWA. Other colleagues killed worked for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the Department of Safety and Security of the United Nations Secretariat, and the United Nations Office for Project Services.

We have an obligation to honour their memory and a duty to remember their sacrifice.

Many survivors will bear scars for the remainder of their lives. They grieve the loss of family and friends. They have been maimed. They have been detained. They have been tortured.

“Every single one has endured unimaginable loss,” Secretary-General António Guterres has said. “Homes and communities destroyed, entire families wiped from existence. Yet, somehow, in the face of this relentless horror, they persevere,” he said. “They keep going, often without sleep, often without food, driven by a profound sense of duty and compassion. They keep serving the people of Gaza with courage and selflessness that inspires the world.”

United Staff for Gaza is encouraged by the ceasefire agreement. It recalls also that a durable resolution to the conflict will require acknowledgement of atrocities committed and accountability for egregious violations of international law, including the killing and maiming of UN personnel and their families. United Staff for Gaza’s Memorial Project will therefore work towards the erecting of a permanent monument, at an appropriate location, in tribute to our fallen colleagues and in honour of those who remain on the ground. It must stand as a perpetual reminder that UN personnel and humanitarians must never be a target.

“Our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza and the services they provide to their communities are unique,” said Laura Londén, Senior Adviser to United Staff for Gaza and former UN Assistant Secretary-General. “Refugees themselves, they grew up with, and continue to serve, their communities through UNRWA’s programmes – often during frequent conflicts, hardship, hazards and at great personal cost. Many care for large and extended families. The unprecedented brutal killing of Palestinian colleagues and their families carries immeasurable personal, emotional, societal and intergenerational trauma. They deserve our active support and respect and full duty of care, at all times, but in particular for their courageous service during more than 700 days of ongoing hell on earth.” Ms. Londén worked at UNRWA for more than a decade, including as its Director of Human Resources in her last assignment with the agency.

The Memorial Project is supported by the Coordinating Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations, the largest federation of UN staff unions, known by its acronym CCISUA.

“The courage and resilience of our colleagues in Gaza – living, working and witnessing unimaginable conditions – reflects the very best of the United Nations and we are proud of them,” said Nathalie Meynet, President of CCISUA. “CCISUA supports the United Staff for Gaza Memorial Project, to ensure their names live on beside all those who came before them and proclaim with clarity what must never again be ignored: humanitarians are not a target.”




United Staff for Gaza's Memorial Project will work towards the erecting of a permanent monument, at an appropriate location, in tribute to our fallen colleagues and in honour of those who remain on the ground. It must stand as a perpetual reminder that UN personnel and humanitarians must never be a target.