UN Rights Commissioner Volker Turk tells Al Jazeera that after working for the United Nations for 35 years, he “never imagined that we’d end up in a situation where in Gaza, in Yemen, in Lebanon, our colleagues killed not only once or twice, but frankly in a way that is totally unfathomable”.

“We had, as you know, many hundreds of colleagues killed in Gaza,” he said, and “a lot of Unifil personnel killed” in southern Lebanon, as well as 74 colleagues detained in Yemen.

Turk says that his staff who have been monitoring the situation are exhausted and traumatised.

He calls for the protection of UN staff and all those who work in humanitarian and human rights positions, “because we are doing it impartially” in order to serve people all around the world.

“I do think that the majority of people around the world care about not only our work, but also about the truth coming out, and that’s what we are counting on,” he says, adding, “we need to point out that international law that nobody is above international law and there are no exceptions to it.”