The United Nations on Monday condemned "unacceptable" levels of violence that are now commonplace against humanitarian workers after a record 280 were killed worldwide in 2023.

And it warned that the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip is potentially fueling even higher numbers of such deaths this year.

"The normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere," Joyce Msuya, acting director of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a statement on World Humanitarian Day.