Gaza aid workers killed in Israeli raid, international condemnation

The United Nations and the European Union condemned on Thursday the deaths of UN staff in an Israeli strike attack on a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip, which killed a total of 18 people according to rescuers.

Israel said it targeted Palestinian Hamas “terrorists” in its latest military attack Wednesday on a school turned into a displacement camp in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 11 months of war.

The attack was triggered by an attack by the Islamist Hamas movement against Israel on October 7. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a campaign of aerial bombardments followed by a ground offensive in Gaza, which have killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian and health disaster.

“A school converted into a shelter for 12,000 people has again been targeted by Israeli strikes. Six of our colleagues from UNRWA (the Palestinian refugee agency) are among the dead. What is happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” said UN chief Antonio Guterres.

Displaced Palestinians carry a victim of a strike on the al-Jawni school in the Gaza Strip on September 12, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said he was “outraged”. “The disregard for the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, in particular the protection of civilians, cannot and must not be accepted by the international community.”

The same story in Berlin, which considered the deaths of the humanitarians “totally unacceptable.” “The Israeli army has a responsibility to protect UN employees and humanitarians.”

– “What have they done wrong?”? –

Displaced Palestinians in al-Jawni school in the Nusseirat camp in the Gaza Strip on September 12, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for the protection of humanitarian workers, “an issue we continue to raise with Israel.” “We continue to see Hamas hiding in these sites,” he also said.

According to Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal, 18 people including UNRWA collaborators died in the strike on the al-Jawni school in the Nusseirat camp (center), which has already been targeted several times since the start of the war.

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The Israeli army said in a statement that its air force had “carried out a precision strike on terrorists operating in a Hamas command center” in the school.

She then said she had asked UNRWA to provide her with “detailed information and the names of the workers” in order to investigate. “Until now, UNRWA has not responded despite repeated requests.”

But Juliette Touma, UNRWA's communications director, told AFP: “We are not aware of any such request to UNRWA.”

The agency “shares lists of all its employees every year with host governments and, in the context of the West Bank and Gaza, with the State of Israel as the occupying force,” she said.

Displaced Palestinians in the al-Jawni school in the Nusseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, on September 12, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” lamented Umm Ayman, a Palestinian woman, outside the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where people injured in the school strike, including at least one child and women, were taken.

“The children, the elderly, the women, what wrong have they done to end up in pieces?”

– New deadly raids –

In recent months, the army has struck several schools in the Gaza Strip, accusing Hamas of operating there.

The movement, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, denies the accusations.

The vast majority of the Palestinian territory's 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced, with many taking refuge in schools.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, at least 15 Palestinians were killed Thursday in relentless Israeli bombardments, including seven children in Gaza City (north), according to the civil defense.

On the humanitarian front, the World Health Organization announced that the first round of vaccinations anti-polio campaign in Gaza, had probably achieved its goal. According to her, more than 552,000 children have received a first dose and the second is due in about four weeks.

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel carried out an attack that resulted in the death of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, 33 of whom have been declared dead by the army.

The Israeli reprisals have left at least 41,118 dead, according to a report from the Hamas government's health ministry. According to the UN, the majority of the dead are women and children.

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