Cease-Fire or Not, PETA Pushes U.N. to Add Aid for Animals Caught in Crossfire in Gaza

For Immediate Release:
December 19, 2023

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

PETA has launched an urgent call for aid, including veterinary medical supplies and food, to be added to deliveries of vital goods sent in convoys entering Gaza, as the animals caught in the crossfire are suffering and dying of starvation, dehydration, and untreated injuries and supplies for them have yet to make it through the closed borders. The plea running in today’s Washington Examiner features the letter PETA sent today to Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres, asking him to add relief supplies for animals who have no part, except as victims, in human wars.

The letter notes that animals, like children, are innocent victims of a conflict not of their making and “need us, as moral agents in a global community, to try to secure their well-being.”

“This humanitarian crisis is also an animal crisis, as animals who rely entirely on humans to care for them and are often considered family members are suffering in war-torn chaos and dying without access to food, water, and medicine,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges the U.N. to consider the needs of everyone in its plans to deliver aid and .”

PETA appealed to Guterres to render aid to animals in Gaza in November—but essential supplies for them have yet to make it through the blockades.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.