“Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.”
Five UN schools sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip have been attacked in the last ten days alone as Israel’s genocidal attack on the enclave continues, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said.
“Yesterday in Gaza City, an UNRWA school sheltering families was hit. The day before, one of our schools was hit in Nuseirat,” UNRWA stated on X on Tuesday. “Five schools have been hit in the last 10 days.”
The agency stressed that “UN facilities must be protected at all times.”
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It said: “9 months in, the relentless, endless killings, destruction & despair continue. No one is safe in Gaza.”
Headquarters ‘Flattened’
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, said the agency’s headquarters in Gaza was “turned into a battlefield & now flattened.”
“Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law,” Lazzarini stated.
He stressed that UN facilities “must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting purposes.”
Lazzarini added “Every war has rules. Gaza is no exception.”
Since October 7, a total of 195 UNRWA workers have been killed and “nearly 190 installations have been damaged or destroyed,” resulting in the deaths of more than 500 Palestinians seeking United Nations protection, according to UNRWA.
The agency has repeated calls for an independent investigation into attacks on its premises in the besieged enclave.
Lazzarini said “Gaza is decimated. More than two million people are trapped in a living hell.”
Rising Death Toll
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 38,584 Palestinians have been killed, and 88,881 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
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Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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