(AGENPARL) – Fri 25 July 2025 Logo ICRC EN.jpg      International Committee of the Red Cross
** Israel and the Occupied Territories: ICRC president calls for urgent collective action by states to end abhorrent suffering in Gaza
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ICRC – News Release
25 July 2025
The following is a statement attributable to ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. 
New York (ICRC) – There is no excuse for what is happening in Gaza. The scale of human suffering and the stripping of human dignity have long exceeded every acceptable standard – both legal and moral.
Every minute without a ceasefire risks civilian lives. The level of suffering inflicted on civilians because of warfare conducted indiscriminately and the extreme deprivation of the essentials for survival is abhorrent.
People are being relentlessly killed in hostilities and while attempting to get food. Children are dying because they do not have enough to eat. Families are being forced to flee again and again in search of safety that does not exist. The ICRC has more than 350 staff on the ground in Gaza, many of whom are also struggling to find enough food and clean water.  
This tragedy must end now – immediately and decisively. Every political hesitation, every attempt at justification of the horrors being committed under international watch will forever be judged as a collective failure to preserve humanity in war.
States must uphold their obligation under the Geneva Conventions to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law (IHL), including by ensuring that the arms they transfer do not contribute to violations of IHL.
States must do more to ensure that the parties to the conflict fulfil their obligations under IHL. This means resuming the rapid, unimpeded and impartial delivery of humanitarian relief across Gaza. This means releasing all remaining hostages immediately and unconditionally. This means allowing the ICRC to resume visits to Palestinian detainees in Israeli places of detention.  
Lives must be saved in Gaza – and this is possible with political courage to ensure respect for the rules of war and the protections they afford civilians.
About the ICRC
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a neutral, impartial and independent organization with an exclusively humanitarian mandate that stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It helps people around the world affected by armed conflict and other violence, doing everything it can to protect their lives and dignity and to relieve their suffering, often alongside its Red Cross and Red Crescent partners.
** For more information, please contact:
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Public Relations Unit | International Committee of the Red Cross | 19, avenue de la Paix | 1202 Geneva | Switzerland
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ICRC, Avenue de la Paix, 19, Geneva, . 1201 Switzerland