According to UNRWA’s latest Situation Report, 182 UNRWA workers have been killed and 165 of the agency’s installations damaged in Gaza since October 7 last year.
The Israeli army bombed a building belonging to the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the besieged Gaza Strip late on Sunday, according to local media.
Israel’s state broadcaster KAN said that Israeli forces claimed the building was a “military command center” used by the resistance group Hamas, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Apart from the attack, many were killed in airstrikes carried out by Israeli warplanes on two schools in Gaza where displaced families had taken shelter, the report added.
‘In the Line of Duty’ – Five Palestinians Killed as Israel Shells UNRWA Aid Distribution Center
Previous Attacks
The latest attack is not the first on UNRWA centre in Gaza by Israel.
In March, at least one UNRWA staff member was killed and several injured in an Israeli strike on a distribution center run by UNRWA in eastern Rafah.
In February, Israeli forces opened fire on a UNRWA school in Khan Yunis, south Gaza, killing one aid worker and injuring another.
According to UNRWA’s latest Situation Report, 182 UNRWA workers have been killed and 165 of the agency’s installations damaged in Gaza since October 7 last year.
The report stated that: “362 incidents impacting UNRWA premises and the people inside them have been reported since the beginning of the war (some with multiple incidents impacting the same location), including at least 50 incidents of military use and/or interference. 165 different UNRWA installations have been impacted.”
The relief agency also estimates that in total at least 428 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) sheltering in UNRWA shelters have been killed and at least a further 1,430 injured in the same period.
‘Not Evacuating’ Rafah
UNRWA on Monday vowed it “is not evacuating” Rafah as news comes of Israel having issued an evacuation order for those residing in the eastern outskirts of the town.
“Together with our partners, we will stay & deliver critical assistance in Rafah as long as possible,” UNRWA Chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X.
Lazzarini warned that an Israeli military offensive “will lead to an additional layer of an already unbearable tragedy for the people in Gaza.”
He said the offensive would make it “even more difficult to reverse the expansion of the already man made famine.”
An Israeli military offensive will lead to an additional layer of an already unbearable tragedy for the people in #Gaza.
It will make even more difficult to reverse the expansion of the already man made famine.
What is needed is a #ceasefireNow not new forced displacement +… https://t.co/CYG1gT7NnQ
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 6, 2024
Over 34,600 Killed
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, 34,683 Palestinians have been killed, and 78,018 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
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.
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’.
(PC, Anadolu)
