A senior UN official mentioned Saturday that academics and different UN workers working in Gaza concern they’re now targets after an Israeli air strike hit a school-turned-shelter within the territory this week.
Wednesday’s strike on the UN-run Al-Jawni College in central Gaza, which is housing displaced Palestinians, killed 18 individuals. together with six staff of the United Nations company for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
It was the deadliest single incident for the company in additional than 11 months of battle and drew worldwide condemnation.
“One colleague mentioned that they are not carrying the UNRWA vest anymore as a result of they really feel that that turns them right into a goal,” UNRWA senior deputy director Sam Rose informed AFP on Saturday after visiting the shelter in Nuseirat.
“One other one mentioned that that morning, their kids had stopped them from coming into the shelter,” he mentioned in an internet interview from Gaza.
The colleagues have been gathering for a post-work meal in a classroom when the strike flattened a part of the constructing, leaving solely a charred heap of rebar and concrete.
“A son of one of many workers had introduced a meal into the constructing,” Rose mentioned, including the group then debated whether or not to eat it within the principal’s workplace earlier than selecting what gave the impression to be a classroom embellished with photos of scientists.
“They have been consuming when the bomb hit.”
The Israeli army mentioned it had carried out a “exact strike” on Hamas militants throughout the college grounds and had taken steps to scale back the chance to civilians.
– ‘Bereft and determined’ –
The Israeli army revealed what it mentioned was an inventory of 9 militants killed within the Nuseirat strike, together with three it mentioned have been staff of UNRWA.
An Israeli authorities spokesman mentioned the college had grow to be “a respectable goal” as a result of it was utilized by Hamas to launch assaults.
Rose mentioned such statements additional battered morale amongst UN staffers nonetheless on the college, the place 1000’s have sought shelter from a battle that has displaced practically all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants at the very least as soon as.
“They have been notably offended by the allegations that had been made as to the involvement of their colleagues in extremist and terrorist actions,” Rose mentioned.
“They felt that this actually was a stain on the reminiscence of expensive colleagues, expensive buddies,” he added, describing the temper as “bereft” and “determined”.
UNRWA has mentioned at the very least 220 members of the company’s workers have been killed within the Israel-Hamas battle in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented assault on southern Israel on October 7.
The assault resulted within the deaths of 1,205 individuals in Israel, principally civilians, in keeping with an AFP tally primarily based on Israeli official figures.
The militants additionally seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are nonetheless in Gaza, together with 33 the Israeli army says are useless.
Israel’s retaliation has killed at the very least 41,182 individuals in Gaza, in keeping with the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry.
On Friday, UNRWA introduced one among its staff was killed throughout an Israeli raid within the occupied West Financial institution, the primary such dying within the territory in additional than a decade.
UNRWA has greater than 30,000 staff within the Palestinian territories and elsewhere.
It has been in disaster since Israel accused a dozen of its staff of being concerned within the October 7 assault.
The UN instantly fired the implicated workers members, and a probe discovered some “neutrality associated points” however harassed Israel had not supplied proof for its primary allegations.