Humanity Under Fire: Reflection on World Humanitarian Day 2025

A personal reflection by Ghassan Shahrour

Reposted from the ICAN Campaigners Group

On 19 August, the world honors those who risk—and often give—their lives to aid others. “World Humanitarian Day” marks the 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which claimed at least 22 humanitarian workers. That tragedy prompted the UN to create this day of remembrance and action.

In 2025, the UN’s call is urgent: Stop attacks on humanitarians and civilians. End impunity under international humanitarian law. More than 300 million people rely on humanitarian aid. Yet those delivering it face unprecedented danger. Funding is shrinking. Disinformation erodes trust. Protections promised by law are repeatedly—and brutally—violated. Last year alone, at least 390 aid workers were killed—from Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar and beyond. 

International law is clear: humanitarian workers must be respected and protected. To target them is to strike at the heart of our shared humanity. Yet, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Israeli army’s war on Gaza has become the deadliest on record for humanitarian personnel—met not with decisive global action, but with the world turning a blind eye.

The World Health Organization reports 735 attacks on health care in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 11 June 2025. These assaults killed 917 people and injured 1,411. They affected 125 health facilities and damaged 34 hospitals. UN experts now say the targeted destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system by the Israel Defense Forces amounts to medicide. On July 18, 2025, the statement by the European public health community on Gaza had similar conclusions. It is powerful, but long overdue, after countless human rights reports and UN warning of genocide. 

In 2012, I wrote “Be Proud You Are a Humanitarian Worker,” published in Al-Manal Magazine and other outlets. It celebrated the courage of those who serve despite the risks. In the years since, I’ve repeated this message in public gatherings and media, reaffirming the vital role humanitarian workers play in upholding our common humanity.

But today, after the staggering killings, injuries, and attacks in Gaza, I ask: What should I say now?

The answer is never silence. It is renewed action. It is advocacy. It is unwavering protection.

If the loss of 22 humanitarian workers in 2003 was enough to inspire the creation of “World Humanitarian Day,” then the staggering losses in Gaza—ignored by so many—should compel the UN and the world to declare every single day a “World Humanitarian Day.”

Gaza has suffered the highest recorded loss of aid workers, health workers, journalists, children, teachers, and UN staff. Ambulances, hospitals, shelters, and UN facilities have been bombed.

After mourning the loss, we must confront its machinery. True protection requires dismantling the weapons that make such devastation possible. The killing of civilians and aid workers—by bombs, shells, or airstrikes—violates the same humanitarian law that outlaws weapons of mass destruction.

Disarmament, and nuclear abolition in particular, is not separate from humanitarian protection. It is its ultimate safeguard. A world that accepts Gaza’s unprecedented

catastrophic destruction will never be safe. Nor can the world consider itself immune to another Hiroshima. 

Honoring the fallen means more than words. It means protecting aid workers. Holding perpetrators accountable. Ending arms flows to those who trample humanitarian law. And building a disarmed, nuclear-free world.

Failing to protect them is not just a humanitarian failure. It is a collapse of the principles that make peace possible.

On this “World Humanitarian Day,” let us as - governments, civil societies and media - remember: an attack on humanitarians is an attack on humanity itself. To truly honor them, we must defend compassion, courage, and solidarity—and ensure the tools of war never again silence those who protect life.