UN Relief Chief warns of 'moment of grave peril' as humanitarian crises escalate in Middle East

Remarks at the Daily Press Briefing at UN Headquarters by Tom Fletcher, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator  

New York, 6 March 2026

Very good to see you again, although, albeit in a very tough moment for our humanitarian work. I do think this is a moment of grave peril right now. We’re seeing these crises escalate rapidly with consequences that are out of control for those instigating the conflict, and we’re seeing increasing linkages between these different humanitarian crises – none of them good.

We’re seeing staggering amounts of money, reportedly $ 1 billion a day, funding this war, spent on destruction, while politicians continue to boast about cutting aid budgets for those in greatest need.

And we’re seeing an increasingly deadly alliance of technology and killing with impunity.

We’re seeing a sustained attack against the systems and laws meant to restrain us from our worst instincts and from reckless warfare.

So too many warning lights are flashing on the dashboard right now. And as the Secretary-General has said, and as you’ll have heard from Steph [Dujarric, the Spokesman for the Secretary-General], what we need is de-escalation, an immediate cessation of hostilities, genuine dialogue and negotiations, in line with the Charter of the United Nations.

We need calmer heads to prevail.

Actions, of course, have consequences, and once again, civilians are facing those consequences across the Middle East.

Homes, hospitals and schools are being hit. Across the region, UNHCR are reporting hundreds of thousands of people displaced. UNICEF are reporting that over 190 children have been killed since the escalation, including over 180 in Iran, seven in Lebanon, three in Israel, and one in Kuwait.

So once again, civilians must be protected – full stop.

We are fully mobilized in response, across the humanitarian community. I’m in close contact with our teams in Iran and throughout the wider region, and we’re distributing life-saving help, including food, medicine and shelter.

Yesterday, I spoke to the Permanent Representative of Iran. I reaffirmed the UN’s readiness to help civilians needing humanitarian support. Authorities there are reporting more than 1,000 deaths and damage to over 100 civilian sites. UNHCR and IOM [International Organization for Migration] are reporting to us that around 100,000 people have been internally displaced in the last week.

In Lebanon, cause for growing concern: more than 100 people have been killed, hundreds more injured. Around 100,000 people are seeking refuge in hundreds of shelters. Even before the escalation, WFP were reporting that 874,000 people in Lebanon are lacking food.

So we and our partners are, of course, scaling up our operations, and we’re looking at how we can actually mobilize further funding for Lebanon – watch this space on that.

We’ve distributed tens of thousands of hot meals, mattresses and blankets, among other supplies, and of course, clean drinking water.

In Gaza, as you know, Israel initially shut all crossings and brought many humanitarian movements to a halt a week ago, so aid stocks could not be replenished at the rate necessary. Shortages worsened, prices surged, and while Karem Abu Salem/Karem Shalom has reopened, other crossings, including Rafah, remain closed for now. Medical evacuations suspended. We’ve been able to bring in less than a million liters of fuel this week – and I’ve just come from a meeting with my colleague, the head of UNOPS [UN Office for Project Services] on this issue – well below the more than 2 million liters of fuel that we need as a bare minimum to keep services running.

As you know, key NGO partners remain restricted, facing unacceptable restrictions on their work, and strikes on residential areas have continued despite the ceasefire.

Finally in Afghanistan, dozens have been killed in fighting on the Pakistan border, many of them women and children, and civilian infrastructure has been damaged, including a hospital at the IOM transit center and facilities at the Torkham returnee reception center. Displacement, already huge, is rising fast. More than 16,000 families have fled their homes, adding to millions already displaced across Afghanistan, and border closures have left more than 168 containers stranded, while flight suspensions and security restrictions are making it harder for us to reach people in need.

Beyond the impact on those country crises, I also fear three knock-on effects of this war.

Firstly, war doesn’t stay neatly within borders or on desktop military plans. It tears through markets, supply chains, food prices. And when that happens, it’s the most vulnerable people who are hit first and hardest.

And so, when maritime corridors, such as the Straits of Hormuz, are disrupted, food prices will rise. health systems will be squeezed, and basic commodities, including our humanitarian supplies, will become much harder to access.

So, we’re pre-positioning supplies, we’re identifying alternative supply routes, and we’re preparing rapid funding options, including from the Central Emergency Response Fund.

A second-knock on effect: there will be even less attention for crises from DRC to Sudan to South Sudan, where I was last month, to Ukraine and beyond.

We sometimes hear that these conflicts have been ended.

Let me repeat that they have not.

A third knock-on impact: the last week is part of a pattern of attrition against international law and humanitarian principles. As conflicts spread, the international system pulls further apart and more resources flow towards weapons, rather than the funding, the political will, the diplomatic energy needed for saving lives.

Humanitarian action is always harder in times of war, but this is, of course, when it is most needed.

So, I want to end by recognizing the humanitarians who continue to head towards danger to support civilians caught up in this escalation. They must be protected.

The humanitarian movement will once again meet this moment. We’ll continue to serve those who need us.

Thank you.

Q: On behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association, it’s Valeria Robecco from ANSA newswire. So is the UN preparing for an even broader regional emergency on the humanitarian point of view? If the escalation continues, what are the possible next steps, and is the escalation with Iran diverting attention and resources away from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza? Thank you so much.

Under-Secretary-General: Thanks, Valeria, yes to all of those. So, we are preparing, but also mobilizing, for an increase in humanitarian needs across the whole region. Every day that this continues, we see many, many more people displaced, often into areas of existing high need. I mentioned Afghanistan, for example.

So we’re fully mobilized across the region and making sure we’ve got the staff and teams in place and the plans in place to deal with a hugely increased humanitarian caseload. And, as I said, attention now and money and time and energy is shifting into different ways to continue this war, rather than into existing humanitarian needs, and now the new humanitarian needs created by the war.

There is a risk, you’re right, that attention does shift away from Gaza and OPT. We will try to, we will sustain our operations there, of course. We’ll try and retain that engagement that’s necessary.

But I also worry about other crises. I mentioned Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine, which also need, DRC, which also need that sustained engagement, and which are slipping too far down the list. So the warning lights are really flashing right now.

Q: Thank you very much, Mr. Fletcher. Could you tell us what exactly the UN has been able to do in Iran given the pummeling that it’s been taking in airstrikes by both Israel and the United States?

Under-Secretary-General: So, we’re watching this very carefully, and this was the reason that I had the call with the Permanent Representative of Iran yesterday to try and get a clearer sense of the needs. I’m talking to the IFRC, of course – International Federation of Red Crescent – who have a good sense of the rising needs inside Iran. I mentioned the numbers who are internally displaced. We’re not seeing huge movement across the borders at this stage, but we have a significant UNHCR team on the ground that’s monitoring that very closely. I talked to [UNHCR High Commissioner] Barham Salih yesterday, who’s doing extraordinary work to make sure that we get a full response to them.

 At the moment, the Iranian Government are not asking us for humanitarian support beyond that, but I underlined, as I do to all of the Governments of the region, that we’re on standby for anyone who needs that help, and so we will keep monitoring the level of needs and we’ll be ready to act whenever needed.

 Q: I wonder what your department, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, could do with a billion a day.

 Under-Secretary-General: Thank you, Sherwin. That is, well, it’s a billion-dollar question, and I can tell you, we would save millions of lives with a billion dollars. We’re trying this year, as you’ll have heard me say, to save 87 million lives with $23 billion, so you can do the maths on how many we could save every day with that billion dollars. And it breaks my heart that this is being spent on this conflict, rather than dealing with the existing huge humanitarian caseload.

We’ve lost our bearings somehow in the world, and that this ingenuity and creativity that humans have is being spent on developing more and more sophisticated ways of killing each other, rather than solving a very, very solvable problem here, which is saving those 87 million lives, as the starting point.

So, thank you for the question.

Q: Thank you very much, Biesan Abu-Kwaik with Al Jazeera Arabic. Can you just elaborate a little bit more about what you’re doing in Lebanon? Because, as you had mentioned, Lebanon has been under a lot of strain over the past couple of years, and people are being re-displaced in an ongoing cycle. So, if you could just give us a bigger picture, or more focused picture on what’s going on there.

 Under-Secretary-General: So I’m really worried about the situation in Lebanon, a country that continues to be buffeted by other people’s wars, and we’re dealing with, of course, high numbers of already displaced people. We’re seeing a number of Syrians crossing the border back into Syria. We’re also seeing a number of Lebanese citizens crossing into Syria as well, and massive displacement from the south and, of course, from the southern suburbs, from the Dahiyeh, southern suburbs of Beirut as well, amid further warnings of Israeli strikes, many of them incredibly threatening and bellicose in the way they’re describing what they plan to do to those areas.

I was speaking this morning to our Humanitarian Coordinator [for Lebanon, Imran Riza], who is putting together an assessment of the new needs as a result of this phase of the conflict. It’s a very underfunded response plan, humanitarian response plan, we have there, but he’s working with the authorities, with the Minister for Social Affairs and others. He’s in very close touch with the Member States inside Lebanon as well, to identify these new, existing needs. A lot of it is about helping those who can’t get to the shelters. A lot of it is actually about providing support to those inside the shelters.

 But ultimately, all this is sticking plaster. All this is responding to unnecessary levels of needs, when actually what we need, as the [Secretary-General] has said, is that de-escalation and calm. And so I’ll stay in very close contact with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, with the Lebanese Government and with our team on the ground to make sure we have the resources and that they have the support they need to scale up.

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