Thank you, colleagues. It’s nice to be joining you on a day with some good news, at a moment of hope and opportunity, as the Secretary-General has set out earlier. I’m conscious today of that George Mitchell line about [700] days of failure and one day of success is the nature of diplomacy and of peacemaking. And we’ve had to wait almost [that long], and let’s make this day of success count now.
President Trump’s peace plan must be the basis for life-saving work throughout the region and for saving tens of thousands of lives. So we must seize this moment with collective will, with determination, and with generosity.
There must be no backsliding on the agreements that have been made. There will be some who will seek to prevent President Trump’s plan from being implemented, and that must not be allowed to happen. This cannot be a false dawn for civilians in Gaza and Israel who are so desperate for peace, to see again their loved ones and their families after so long waiting, and to live lives free from fear.
So our plan – detailed and tested – is in place. Our supplies, 170,000 metric tons – food, medicine and other supplies – are in place. And our team – courageous and expert and determined – are in place.
So here is what we plan to deliver in the first 60 days of the ceasefire:
We will aim to increase the pipeline of supplies to hundreds of trucks every day.
Food – we will scale up the provision of food across Gaza to reach 2.1 million people who need food aid and around 500,000 people who need nutrition. Famine must be reverted in areas where it has taken hold and prevented in others. So we will be distributing in-kind rations. We’ll be supporting bakeries, community kitchens. We’ll be supporting herders and fishers in restoring their livelihoods. And we will be providing cash for 200,000 families to cover basic food needs and bolster their ability to cope, and also to give them their sense of – and this is so important – dignity and agency by choosing their own food from the markets.
Nutrition – we’ll increase nutrition screening, and we’ll provide nutrition supplies, including high-energy, nutrient-dense food items for the most vulnerable groups, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and children and adolescents.
On health, we’ll restore the decimated health system. We’ll aim to deliver more essential medical commodities and medical supplies. We’ll aim to reestablish community-level disease surveillance, to support emergency referrals and more medical evacuations, to supplement the workforce by deploying more emergency teams, and we’ll help scale up emergency care: primary health; child health; sexual, reproductive, maternal and neonatal health; non-communicable diseases, mental health and rehabilitation. And we’ll enhance outbreak preparedness, surveillance, logistics and referral systems to meet the health needs of the people.
On water and sanitation, we’re targeting 1.4 million people with water and sanitation services. We’ll help to restore the water grid – so to [reduce] people’s reliance on water trucking, including by providing fuel, generators, chemicals, materials and supplies. We will install latrines at the household level. We will repair sewage leaks and pumping stations. We will move solid waste away from residential spaces. And we’ll provide hygiene supplies: soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, sanitary pads.
Shelter – we will now carry out a massive scale-up in shelter provision, including to help families to prepare for winter. We’ll bring in and distribute thousands of tents every week, in addition to tarps and other items. We’ll focus on bigger and more vulnerable families and those in particularly dire conditions in underserved and overcrowded sites. And we’ll prioritize people who have been newly displaced and the returnees who have lost their homes. Through all of this, we hope to prepare families for the rainy season, the winter season ahead.
Education – we will reopen temporary learning spaces to provide activities for 700,000 school-aged children, and we’ll provide them with learning materials and school supplies.
This is the plan. We can deliver it. We’ve done it before, and we will do it again.
To deliver it, we need to ensure protection for civilians, particularly women and girls. We need to identify where the unexploded ordinance is to reduce that risk to civilians, particularly as they return to their home areas. We’ll have to boost support for child protection and to support those who’ve been the victims of sexual violence. And we’ll have to constantly prioritize. Our teams are ready to make the tough decisions ahead about where to focus support and to ensure that it reaches – and this is very, very important – that it reaches civilians, and civilians only.
For all of this to happen, we need 10 things:
One, sustained entry of at least 1.9 million litres of fuel every week.
Two, the resumption of cooking gas.
Three, relief supplies to come in through multiple corridors, and we’ve had useful clarifications today on more crossings becoming open in the hours and days ahead.
We then need more functional crossings, and that means also making sure that we’ve got the additional scanners in place so that our convoys and our trucks can move more swiftly to where they are needed. We need the security guarantees for those crossings. It is notable that looting has fallen in recent days, and as we get more supplies in at the scale needed, we expect that looting to fall further and faster.
We need the basic infrastructure to be restored. We need the protection of humanitarian workers. We need the facilitation of NGO access, including through ensuring that NGOs are not deregistered. The UN can deliver at scale, but we cannot deliver without our partners in the humanitarian movement.
Nine, we need that rapid and unimpeded facilitation – the passage of our humanitarian relief for civilians in need wherever they are in the Gaza Strip.
And finally, we need to ensure that our operations are adequately funded. This is critical to our ability to meet these overwhelming needs. At the moment, only 28 per cent of the US$4 billion needed for the 2025 Flash Appeal for all these areas for the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory] has been funded – only 28 per cent. So every Government, every state, every individual that has been watching this crisis unfold and wondering, what can we do – if only there was something we can do? Now is the time to make that generosity count, to help us to deliver, to help us to save so many lives in the Gaza Strip, to respond to this plan at the scale required and with the level of kindness and generosity that, frankly, the world owes right now. We need those quick injections of aid to get the pipeline open and the aid flowing.
For those tens of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis who have lost their lives in the last two years, on October 7th and since, including the hundreds of our humanitarian colleagues who have died trying to save lives; for those who have hoped against all hope for reason to prevail and this day to come; for those who yearn for food, medicine, shelter, security, to be reunited with their families and loved ones; and for those whose future can still be one of peace, we must act, and we will act.
Thank you.
Q: Thank you very much, Mr. Fletcher, on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association, for doing this important briefing. My name is Edith Lederer from the Associated Press. A couple of quick follow ups. First, have the Israelis signed and Hamas signed on to the UN leading this major humanitarian effort, particularly in, especially in Gaza, for the 2 million Palestinians still there? Secondly, will UNWRA [the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] be playing a role? And thirdly, you said that some people were going to try to prevent this agreement from taking hold. Could you elaborate on who you’re worried about that might impede the implementation of this agreement? Thank you.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Well, thank you, Edie, thank you, Steph [Dujarric, Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General]. So the 20-point plan that was outlined by the mediators, by the negotiators, has excellent language in it on the importance of the UN role at the heart of the humanitarian response. And so we’re being guided by that. That’s the scaffolding within which we will be working, and we are determined to do everything we can to play our part in delivering this important agreement. And that means that the entire UN family is mobilized to deliver. We’ve often said, I’ve often spoken about the indispensable role of UNRWA in delivering in our operations across our work to support Palestinian civilians. I’ve also spoken again today about the importance of our NGO colleagues and partners being mobilized to back this effort. We also, of course, need the private sector to be involved as well, we need the commercial routes to be running. Saving lives at this scale – given the level of needs, the level of starvation, the level of misery and despair – will require a massive collective effort, and that’s what we’re mobilized for.
On the point about those who might seek to derail this process, I think it’s no secret, I think there are hardliners on both sides of the argument who have sought in the past to delay or impede efforts to get the hostages out, to get the aid in. They’ve been explicit in their rejection of what we all recognize as a path towards peace. And I hope that the way in which the world has come out so clearly backing President Trump’s initiative and the work that’s been done by the regional foreign ministers – many of whom I’ve been in touch with today – that very, very strong welcome from the international community for this plan will serve to marginalize those voices who would seek to prevent its success.
Q: And UNRWA? UNRWA’s participation?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: As I say, the whole UN humanitarian family is mobilized to do everything we can to get aid through. We will take a judgment day to day on what is needed on the convoys, where we can best save lives, but we’ll be doing that as one UN family.
Q: Thank you very much, Biesan Abu-Kwaik with Al Jazeera Arabic. So you laid out this plan. You’re ready to, it seems, to be on the go immediately. So just a couple of questions. Do you feel that you have enough people on the ground to actually deliver what the plan promises? And from conversations that you have been having with donors or relevant parties, since this agreement has come to light, have you sensed a desire for more people coming forward to raise more money in terms of funding all of these operations since you actually mentioned the percentage of money that’s still available now? And one last, and a third follow up, a lot of the people who have been displaced are going to go back to areas where there are no homes. Homes have been destroyed. Do you have enough supplies in terms of tents, caravans, all of that for people who are displaced to actually find a place to stay when they go back to their areas?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Thank you so much. So we are, in the words of my extraordinary colleague, Cindy McCain, who runs the World Food Programme: we are ready to roll. It’s something she regularly says in meetings, and we are, in this case, absolutely ready to roll and deliver at scale. And I pay tribute to the work of WFP colleagues and colleagues from across the UN and the wider humanitarian family for the preparations that they’ve been doing. They’ve been wanting to be getting in at this scale for months. Let’s be clear, we’ve been asking, demanding, imploring for the access, which we hope that in the coming days we will now have, and so we are absolutely ready to go.
As part of that, if you look at my phone now, you’ll see countless messages from colleagues from across the UN humanitarian family, people putting their hands up to get out there and help deliver this. For all of us, I think we feel the sense of purpose and a sense of mission about the importance of the work we have in the days ahead so we have no shortage of volunteers, and we’ll be taking those judgments about what expertise we need in-country and in the region in the days ahead to make sure that we’re not going to miss this opportunity. We must seize this opportunity to deliver at a much, much greater scale than we’ve been able to do, really, since the last ceasefire, when I was there back in [February].
On whether the donors will come forward: of course, let’s wait and see. This is the moment when we test that commitment. We test whether the world will react with the generosity which I certainly feel is demanded in the situation. And I’m an idealist here, and I refuse to believe, I cannot believe that the world will not come forward at this stage and make sure that these operations are fully funded. Anyone who has watched any of the news over the last two years, whose heart has been repeatedly broken by what they’ve seen, anyone who cares about getting the hostages home and the food in, as we all do, will surely come forward and get wholeheartedly behind this response.
We do have significant supplies of tents […]. Many Palestinian civilians, as they told me they would do, will now be heading back to destroyed homes to try to restart their lives and start that long and painful process of rebuilding. This morning, when the news broke, there was huge celebration in Gaza, there was hope that this conflict was over, but then for many people, they returned to the desperation of just surviving, and a large part of that will be thinking about how they survive the winter, and so we have to get that shelter in for them, and I’m determined we’ll do that.
Q: Hi, thank you. My name is Ibtisam Azem, al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper. I want to follow up on, you talked about sustained entry, but, as a matter of fact, there is the issue of the blockade, and it is something that was before the beginning of this war, also hindering access to Gaza. So are you hoping for the lift of the blockade, and what do you think should be done about it? And then you talked about the need for bringing in hundreds of trucks. But there is also the issue of the quality of the aid that should enter, which includes probably machines and others to help you with your work, the other issues that you want to do. So how fast do you want to see all of this happening? And what about the Rafah crossing? Are you working on having aid delivered through Rafah? Thank you.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: So my assumption is we are going to have – and we must have – unimpeded humanitarian access, and so the blockade must be lifted. We’ve been demanding that for months, and we’ll continue to demand that, and my reading of the agreement is that we will have that unhindered access that is so important for our life-saving work.
As you say, there will be a phase beyond the immediate humanitarian response when we can turn our minds to rebuilding and that long-term resilience of Gaza – we’re not there yet. We will do the planning with our colleagues, with the parties on the ground, with the region, to prepare a plan for that phase. But for now, our focus is on the ceasefire, and on delivering on this life-saving work and saving as many lives as we can in the conditions that we find ourselves in. To do that, to your final question, yes, we need all crossings open. When we talk unimpeded access, that means opening up all of those crossings, opening up those secure routes. And so that is a key part of our dialogue, and we’re obviously in very close dialogue, our team on the ground, with the Israeli authorities, with the Palestinian authorities, with the region as well, including the neighbours, to ensure that we can get those crossings open.
Q: Hi, Mr. Fletcher, this Xu Dezhi with China Central Television. Two questions. First, do you have a plan to visit Gaza in person if this ceasefire deal holds? And secondly, you just mentioned that your assumption is that you’re going to have and you must have unimpeded access, humanitarian access, into Gaza. What about your coordination with Israeli authorities on this so far? Do they have a concrete agreement on this? Or you’re going to have a dialogue with them day by day to see how many trucks get into Gaza?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Many thanks, Dezhi. The Gaza crisis is, as you can imagine, very much at the top of my in-tray, and I would very much anticipate visiting to meet the team, to check on the progress of our aid delivery, and to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to remove any obstacles, and to work with everyone, everyone, to get life-saving aid through. So I very much hope to visit, and I hope the conditions will be in place for that.
In terms of the coordination: absolutely, we have a close dialogue with the Israeli authorities, with COGAT, who oversee much of this work, and that dialogue has been ongoing even when we’ve gone through these very difficult months and when we’ve disagreed on many things. And so the team are, of course, engaged with them and engaged in the spirit of wanting to solve problems, and my hope is that that is the mindset of all of us in this next phase – that we want to work together to save as many lives as possible and make sure that President Trump’s deal sticks in all its aspects.
Q: Mr. Fletcher, thank you so much for holding this briefing, Kris Reyes with Canadian Broadcasting. Given that Israel has had such a combative relationship with the United Nations throughout this war, how much of a green light do you need from Israel to carry out this ambitious plan? And perhaps you can give us some insight into the dialogue that you say that you’re holding right now with Israeli forces.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: I’ll leave you to choose the adjective for some of the back-and-forth that we’ve clearly had over a long period now as we sought to secure maximum humanitarian access and save as many lives as we can, but also sought to bear witness to what we’ve seen in Gaza these last two years.
We have got that dialogue, and that dialogue continued all the way through this time with our team on the ground, able to talk to their counterparts in COGAT and the Israeli authorities about what we need and the restraints that we face.
I don’t think that any of this is rocket science. We’ve worked with the Israeli authorities in the past, as we did during the 42-day ceasefire back at the beginning of the year, to deliver aid at massive scale: 500, 600 trucks going in every day. So we have the muscle memory between us all, and if we have the right spirit of dialogue, cooperation, and we can work to rebuild trust, then I am confident that we can save lives at scale. That life-saving work, getting the hostages home, the aid in – it’s something that surely we can all agree on, and that’s the spirit in which I’m ready to work and we’re ready to work.
Q: Amélie Bottollier from AFP news agency. I have a question about the volume and the timeframe. You said that there are 170,000 tons of aid around the outside of Gaza and the plan is over two months, 60 days. Does this volume of aid already pre-positioned around Gaza enough for covering the plan for the two first months, or do you need extra aid to come in to be able to feed the 2 million people of Gaza for these two first months?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Thank you, so that number refers to the aid which is ready to go. We will need, then, to position more aid. We pre-positioned a lot of it, but we will need to bring more aid over the coming two months. And let’s be clear, this problem won’t go away in two months. There will still be an enormous amount of effort that is needed beyond that, and that’s why we’ll be seeking to get those pipelines moving and seeking the generosity of our donors.
Q: On humanitarian aid to Gaza, what percentage would you say you are using your capacity at the moment recently, and after the ceasefire tonight, in the coming 60 days, what percentage capacity are you aiming to increase? What’s your projection on that? […]
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: So I’d say we’ve been delivering probably less than 20 per cent a day of what we should be getting in. We should be getting hundreds of trucks in. Today was a better day. We’re still counting the trucks that we got in and were able to distribute. I hope tomorrow will be an even better day. And I hope in the days to come, we’ll be able to carry on giving you a positive trajectory, and we will certainly share the data that we have day by day. Steph [Dujarric], I know that he’ll be grilling us for those facts and figures to share with you, to indicate what we’re able to do, and, of course, what we’re not able to do if we do encounter blockages.
But the scale that we need is much, much more, as we’ve been saying consistently, than what we’ve been allowed to get in in recent months, and so we need to see that visible surge, that real sea change in what we can get in. And that’s what we’re working for flat out right now.
* Originally posted here on 9 October 2025
Displaced families queue for a hot meal distribution at a community kitchen in Deir al Balah, Gaza, in October 2025. With renewed hope for a ceasefire, the UN stands ready to scale up life-saving aid delivery across the Gaza Strip. Photo: OCHA/Olga Cherevko
