In a joint statement, the heads of multiple UN agencies said they were "alarmed by the sustained violations of the rules of war and international humanitarian law" in the region.
"Even wars have rules, and these rules must be respected," the statement from the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) said.
The joint statement—penned by UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher along with the heads of the UN agencies for human rights (OHCHR), health (WHO), food (FAO), refugees (UNHCR), and children (UNICEF), among others—decried the soaring toll since the US and Israel launched their war on 28 February and Tehran retaliated against American military bases and energy hubs in the Arab Gulf countries..
"In just the last month across the Middle East, thousands of civilians have been killed and injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many multiple times," it said.
"The numbers continue to rise, and essential services are increasingly difficult to access."
"Health workers, hospitals, and ambulances have been targeted. Schools have been struck. Civilian infrastructure—including bridges, residential buildings, houses, water facilities, and power plants—has been destroyed," it said.
The agency chiefs voiced particular concern about the impact on "women and children and others with specific needs", as well as on global supply chains, "with food and fuel prices on the rise".
At the same time, they highlighted that "our humanitarian colleagues have been caught up in the hostilities."
Just since the beginning of this year, they said, "14 aid workers have been killed or injured in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, eight in Iran, and five in Lebanon".
"This is an alarming toll."
The agency chiefs said they "strongly condemn all attacks on civilians, including humanitarian and health workers, as well as civilian objects."
"We demand that all parties - whether Member States of the United Nations or armed groups - respect their legal obligation to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, and civilian infrastructure," they added. "All violations must be met with accountability."
The UN statement comes 50 days after the start of the US-Israel war on Lebanon and the escalating Israeli bombing of Lebanon that left thousands killed and wounded, and millions displaced in Iran and Lebanon.
It failed to condemn the US and Israel as the cuprits in starting the current war in the region or the protagonists in targeting civilians and civilian infrastructures in Iran and Lebanon.
On 11 March, the UNSC condemned the Iranian attacks on Arab Gulf countries and Jordanafter the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.
The resolution, tabled by Bahrain on behalf of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members and Jordan, was adopted with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions (China and Russia).
Iranian retaliatory attacks against US military bases and energy hubs in the Arab Gulf also caused damage to around 60 different energy facilities across nine countries in the Gulf, according to data compiled by JPMorgan Commodities Research.
The damage varies, with some facilities such as the Ras Laffan oil-and-gas complex in Qatar requiring years of repairs.
In tandem, Iranian missiles and drones targeting US assets in the region have killed at least 15 US soldiers and 15 civilians.
On the other side, US and Israeli strikes have killed at least 3,000 people in Iran and wounded 26,500 others, according to the country's Forensic Medicine Organization.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon since 2 March have killed at least 2,020 people and injured another 6,436, and displaced more than 1.2 million people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
A single wave of Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Beirut and across Lebanon on Wednesday killed over 357 people and injured 1,223 others.
On the first day of the war, the Washington-Tel Aviv alliance targeted a children’s school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, killing at least 165 girls, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS).
The strike on the Minab school is considered the deadliest known US attack on civilians in decades and prompted calls from lawmakers and human rights groups for an independent investigation into potential violations of international humanitarian law.
Speaking in early March, the the executive director of DAWN, a US-based non-profit focused on rights in the Middle-East, condemned the US-Israeli violence, saying that "US and Israeli forces have launched a war of choice, killed hundreds of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands, bombed scores of schools, health facilities, and fuel depots, and dropped white phosphorus on civilian communities."
"The international community's failure to act when the most fundamental norms of international law are being challenged risks plunging the world further into a lawless era in which civilians across the globe are at risk," he added.
Throughout the war, under the motto of Operation Epic Fury, US and Israeli airstrikes targeted civilian infrastructure, including tens of thousands of residential and commercial units, schools and universities, oil depots, steel and pharma factories, heritage sites, hospitals and clinics in other cities such as Tehran and Parand.
International organizations, including the UN and UNESCO, condemned the targeting of educational facilities as a grave breach of international law, emphasizing the protected status of civilians and civilian sites.
The international condemnations for attacks on civilians in Lebanon and Iran came amid near-daily celebrations by the US President of American and Israeli forces targeting civilian infrastructures in Iran with powerful airstrikes and threatening to bomb Iranian power plants.
The US President shocked millions around the world in late March by announcing that he was ready to end the thousands-year old Pesian civilization in 24 hours.
In tandem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity in the genocidal war on Gaza, dubbed the recent massive bombing of Lebanon as Operation Eternal Darkness, using a biblical reference to hell.
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