UN says record numbers of aid workers attacked in 2025, with Gaza deadliest locale

A record number of humanitarian workers were attacked last year, with Gaza accounting for over half of the 350 aid staffers killed, the United Nations says.

Some 907 aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2025 versus 833 the year before, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, a platform funded by Canada and Australia that compiles major security incidents affecting aid workers.

Of those, 350 were killed, down slightly from a record 387 in 2024.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the level of violence is appalling and urges states to respect the rules of war and hold perpetrators accountable.

“Serving others has become more dangerous than ever,” he says, ahead of U.N. ceremonies planned for World Humanitarian Day with flags at half-staff in New York and Geneva in honor of those killed.

Gaza was by far the most deadly place for aid workers in 2025 with 186 humanitarian staffers killed there last year, the database showed, followed by Sudan. The UN Palestinian refugee agency has reported at least 393 staff killed there since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023.

Israel has provided evidence of the refugee agency’s staffers taking part in the Hamas-led October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed and 251 more kidnapped. It has claimed that the agency is riddled with members of Hamas and other terror groups, and has said it goes to great lengths to avoid harm to aid workers and civilians.

Bushra Khalidi, global humanitarian policy lead at Oxfam, calls for greater protections for aid workers, saying: “We’re witnessing an assault on humanitarian action itself.”