On 23 October, UN Staff 4 Gaza issued a press release announcing the launch of a memorial project for UN personnel killed by Israel in Gaza. The group is led by former senior UN staff, many of whom I have worked with.
Before getting into what is fundamentally wrong, on multiple levels, with this action and with this press release, I want to acknowledge what is positive.
It is the first time a public statement explicitly uses the word killed and names the perpetrator, Israel :
“More than 370 members of UN personnel have been confirmed killed by the Israel Defense Forces since October 2023.”
Most others still refer to these colleagues as “dead,” carefully omitting the party responsible. That UN Staff 4 Gaza names Israel directly is due in large part to the fact that its leaders are former senior UN officials; otherwise, they would have been dismissed immediately by the organization. Still, they deserve credit for calling things by their name. The release also correctly states that the majority of those killed were UNRWA staff, not general “UN staff,” a distinction long overdue.
It is precisely because its leaders are former UN staff that they have space for more forceful action and bolder language, unless this entire exercise is simply a PR moment, a gateway to a few interviews on Al Jazeera or other international media, followed by silence.
A memorial has symbolic value, but it falls painfully short of what UNRWA staff killed in Gaza actually deserved. Given the positions and titles these former officials once held, they can do far more. If they genuinely seek to honour UNRWA staff, they can begin by addressing the Secretary-General and the Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, and demand to know why the families of the UNRWA staff killed in Gaza continue to be denied their entitlements.
I doubt the staff who were killed were wondering about a future memorial. Their concerns were very different: If I die, who will take care of my children? Who will support my spouse, my parents? Who will ensure my children have access to education, medicine, stability? That they have enough funds if they choose to escape this hell voluntarily?
No one lies awake at night hoping that their children will one day visit a monument with their name etched on it. They hope their children will survive and be protected.
Many will interpret this as diminishing the efforts of UN Staff 4 Gaza. It is not. I respect most of them, and I know several personally who carry the Palestinian cause with sincerity. This is precisely why their voices, reputations, and platforms matter, and why they should be used for something that will actually serve the families of the UNRWA staff killed by Israel in Gaza, many of whom were killed in the line of service.
There is another point that must be said plainly. If those killed had been American, British, German, Canadian, take your pick, there would already be dozens of committees, campaigns, and advocacy groups demanding justice, pushing relentlessly for reparations, lobbying governments, flooding the media. But when the victims are Palestinian, the system stops at pity. It never reaches action.
This is what a colonial hierarchy looks like: grief is permitted, justice is not.
A brief reminder: the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, gave the bereaved families USD 300 each instead of the USD 126,000 to which they are entitled. And no, the reason is not that UNRWA has a “different set of rules.” The management deliberately excluded the Gaza staff from the annual insurance coverage.
Another reminder: to this day, the Commissioner-General has not released the Provident Fund savings of the deceased staff. These savings belong to the staff and their families, not to the Agency. Nothing prevents UNRWA from releasing these funds or, at minimum, continuing to pay their salaries against their accumulated savings until compensation is properly processed.
If the goal is truly to honour the UNRWA staff killed by Israel in Gaza, then start with real work.
A memorial is beautiful, but beauty does not feed children, does not pay school fees, does not treat trauma, does not bring stability. What will come next is predictable: the unveiling, the photo ops for senior officials, and another round of speeches, while the families still search for someone willing to raise their case and push it forward.
A memorial may stand in stone, but justice must stand in action. Right now, the former is moving ahead, and the latter is nowhere in sight.
