I created a transcript of Athena Raeburn’s 26 August 2026 UN Security Council testimony about Gaza. AIDA is the Association of International Development Agencies. As she mentions in her testimony, it is an umbrella organization that represents ver 100 international development and humanitarian NGOs operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. AIDA’s administrative office is located in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem.
My dream is that concerned countries band together and send their own peacekeeping forces to Gaza TODAY to put an end to the Israeli-sponsored genocide that the widespread suffering it has created.
Note: 1) I added some links to provide additional information. 2) I added an Arabic translation below. Read time: 19 minutes.
MAA
Transcript
I now give the floor to Ms. Athena Rayburn.
Madam President, Excellencies, on behalf of IDA, the Association of International Development Agencies, the umbrella organization bringing together over 100 international development and humanitarian NGOs operating in the occupied Palestinian territories, I wish first to thank you for the opportunity to brief the Council during today’s session. Madam President, I will not spend time today to remark on the nominal improvement of the humanitarian situation inside Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire, nor will I remark on the number of trucks, pallets, and tonnage of aid that has entered Gaza, or even the numbers that have been denied.
This is because, regardless of the volumes of assistance, metrics of aid getting into Gaza do not negate the abhorrent and more relevant reality that we have normalized a situation in which two million people are trapped and dependent on humanitarian assistance that is controlled and restricted by the state that has designed this scarcity. Yes, the latest IPC figures show we have clawed our way back from an engineered famine in Gaza, but it is a disturbing marker of progress to celebrate that a child that may no longer be at imminent risk of starving to death may still be killed at any moment from shelling, airstrikes, or gunfire, or may survive only to carry the consequences of hunger, devastation, and deprivation for the rest of their life. At this scale, these consequences will be felt for generations.
This is not success. Let me be clear. Improvements that have been reported to this Council are not a cause for celebration, nor do they shift or dilute the responsibility that ultimately still sits in this room.
We have a collective responsibility to ensure a durable response. This means sustained humanitarian access, delivery of basic services, recovery, and the creation of conditions in which people in Gaza can begin to live rather than just survive the next 24 hours. This reality, this shared responsibility, is what I will focus my remarks on today.
Excellencies, what is imperative for this Council to note is that while Resolution 2803 helped provide a framework within which the reduction in hostilities became possible, the measure of that framework is not whether a Board of Peace, an International Stabilization Force, or even a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza has been created. It must be whether those institutions are, in the short term, providing immediate protection, relief, and safety for the civilian population, and in the long term, moving Gaza towards the required legal endpoint that has already been adjudicated, the end of Israel’s unlawful presence, and the realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination. By these basic measures, the Board of Peace is failing.
What is evident is that with the operationalization of the Gaza Board of Peace, the rights of Palestinians in Gaza have been made subordinate to the far-reaching, capricious, and arbitrary requirements of its occupier. This is untenable. Madam President, the situation for international NGOs operating in the occupied Palestinian territory is a vivid example of the fact the Board of Peace has not only done nothing to wrest control of the Gaza Strip from the State of Israel, but has also so far functioned to further entrench Israel’s unlawful presence.
It is under the Board of Peace’s oversight that Israeli authorities deregistered over 30 international organizations renowned for their capacity to deliver assistance worldwide in some of the most complex crises on Earth. With the new registration process created by the Israeli Government in March 2025 and implemented in January of this year, among other authorities granted, Israel unlawfully granted itself the authority to deny access to the occupied Palestinian territory to any organization that deems critical of their unlawful actions in Gaza or the West Bank. In meetings with Israeli authorities and NGO representatives last year, it was made clear, deliver and stay silent, or your delivery will not be enabled at all.
Madam President, across the occupied Palestinian territory, INGOs represent over half of all active health partners, providing over 100,000 general clinical consultations per month and supporting the bulk of critical health system functions in Gaza. The shelter response is led by INGOs, who accounted for more than 74 percent of shelter and non-food item activities last year, and we are one of the only providers of inpatient treatment for children suffering from severe and acute malnutrition inside Gaza. The State of Israel has taken this path since the October 2025 ceasefire announcement to restrict these organizations in full knowledge of the size and scope of their operations and the impact this would have on the humanitarian response.
I can attest to this, having in negotiations with the Israeli authorities, shared this information myself directly with them in full transparency and on multiple occasions in the presence of permanent sitting members of this council. The facts of INGO’s operational capacity and presence in Gaza are also matters of public record, as are the acute needs in Gaza documented and reported to this council for almost three years. What remains unclear, however, is the legal basis on which the State of Israel continues to obstruct the provision of impartial humanitarian assistance in direct contraventions with its unconditional obligations under Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
What is also unclear is why the mandate which this council handed to the Board of Peace is being used to obfuscate Israel’s continued actions that are violating the fundamental rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the most basic rules of international humanitarian law. This cannot be the new status quo. Madam President, since the ceasefire was announced and the Board of Peace was created, in addition to the barring of many international aid organizations, it has overseen the deaths of over 1,000 Palestinians reported to have been killed by the Israeli military, continued rejections of medical items considered dual use, including basic medical items such as scissors, crutches, wheelchairs, and prosthetic limbs, continuing and arbitrary restrictions on engine oil, forcing the cost of engine oil up to 45 times its normal price, bringing the humanitarian response today to an absolute breaking point.
Rejections of fresh produce, such as watermelon and onions, for the reason this is not within the humanitarian policy, is not permitted for entry at this time, a policy that has never been fully published or made available. Continuing rejections of international specialized medical staff seeking to enter Gaza and the almost daily movement of the supposedly fixed yellow ceasefire line that has now moved so far west since October, it has restricted or resulted in the full loss of access to at least 85 humanitarian facilities, including water points, schools, and health clinics. Humanitarian assistance by its nature cannot be conditioned, and yet we witness the Israeli authorities shrinking almost daily the physical space in Gaza in which we can operate, with no accountability for the consequences on the lives of Palestinians who continue to be treated barely as an afterthought.
The Board of Peace, if claiming responsibility for the improvements on the situation on the ground in Gaza, must equally take ownership of and action on the violations that continue to be committed under its watch. The Board of Peace is either responsible for all developments, good and bad, or none of them. This leaves us with the question, which of these outcomes are intended, and which are a symptom of inherent flaws? Ultimately, it is this Council that must reckon with these possibilities, but it must be done urgently because the consequences of that reckoning are not here.
They are in Gaza, where still almost two-thirds of the population live in tents or makeshift shelters, and in the last 72 hours alone, multiple airstrikes in deeply populated areas caused damage to humanitarian sites and put civilian and humanitarian personnel lives at risk. Madam President, I would use this moment to highlight to the Council that for almost three years, it is humanitarian actors working with communities on the ground that have been tasked with assessing the humanitarian situation inside Gaza. This is a duty we have discharged to the best of our abilities and at the cost of the lives of over 400 of our colleagues who have been killed.
When we describe the conditions, the abject horrors we have witnessed, and what is required to meet the immense needs, this is what we are seeing with our own eyes, what we are trained and qualified to assess and communicate to the world in good faith, with the only purpose being to alleviate human suffering and ensure the protection of the civilian population under international law. And for almost three years, this Council has received contradictory reports on the levels of death and destruction, the number of trucks, aid getting in, aid getting denied, and detailed technical descriptions of the various obstructors and enablers of assistance. Even today, these conflicting reports are and will be evident in what is presented to you.
What is critical is that your action is guided by credible, on-the-ground knowledge from actors with the required experience, expertise, and mandate to speak on these issues without bias. Madam President, with the adoption of Resolution 2803, the Council assigned clear responsibilities to ensure a comprehensive and long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza, the provision of humanitarian assistance, and a viable path forward for reconstruction and peace. But in doing so, the Council did not relinquish its primary responsibility under the Charter, nor did it suspend the legal order within which those responsibilities must be exercised.
Madam President, Excellencies, today I would like to close by inviting the Council to reflect on how it is discharging those responsibilities. Are you able to satisfy yourselves that you were clear about the facts on the ground, the trajectory of the situation in Gaza? Are you clear on the reasons why we are almost one year into a so-called ceasefire and still advocating on the necessity of engine oil and fresh produce? Are you clear on the intentions for the planned communities being constructed in the south of Gaza under your mandate and their compatibility with your obligations to ensure the protection of Palestinians’ fundamental rights? Madam President, Excellencies, if the answer to those questions is not an unequivocal yes, I do not ask you to take our professional assessment on trust. Instead, exercise your powers of inquiry and come and see for yourselves.
We encourage the Council to undertake an urgent mission to Gaza. Let the reality on the ground, the facts our colleagues and Palestinians speak to you themselves. We are here and we are ready to receive you.
Thank you, Madam President.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe)
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