Senior United Nations officials on Monday called for an "end to the appalling human suffering and humanitarian catastrophe" in the Gaza Strip nearly a year after a war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement.

"These atrocities must end," they said in a statement signed by the heads of UN agencies including UNICEF and the World Food Programme, along with other aid groups, as world leaders gathered in New York for the annual UN General Assembly.

“Humanitarian workers must have safe and unhindered access to people in need. We cannot do our jobs in the face of overwhelming need and ongoing violence,” the statement seen by Al-Quds said.

The United Nations has long complained about the obstacles to getting aid into Gaza during the war and distributing it amid “complete chaos” in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Nearly 300 aid workers have been killed, more than two-thirds of them UN staff. “The threat of famine remains as 2.1 million people remain in dire need of food and livelihood assistance as humanitarian access remains restricted,” UN officials said. “Health care has been devastated. More than 500 attacks on health care have been recorded in Gaza.”

Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Sierra Leone, Switzerland and the United Kingdom said on Monday they would work together to develop a declaration to protect humanitarian workers and call on all countries to sign it, Reuters reported.

“2024 is on track to be the deadliest year on record for aid workers,” said Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

"Australia felt this deeply with the IDF strike against World Central Kitchen vehicles in April, which killed Australian Zumi Francom and her colleagues," she said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

"Gaza is the deadliest place on earth for aid workers," she said.

According to Reuters, "The Israeli military apologized and fired two senior commanders involved in the World Central Kitchen strikes. The Israeli military formally reprimanded three other commanders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes were unintended and tragic."

The war on the besieged Gaza Strip began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters stormed settlements and towns in the Gaza Envelope area, killing about 1,200 people, including 311 soldiers on active duty, and taking about 250 hostages and returning them to Gaza, according to Israeli statistics.

Since then, the Israeli military has destroyed vast swaths of the Gaza Strip, forcing nearly all of its 2.3 million residents to flee their homes, spreading hunger and deadly disease and killing more than 41,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities in Gaza.

The Israeli occupation army claims that it takes steps to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and that at least a third of the Palestinian dead are militants.