A building of the UN agency in Gaza was hit by Israeli shells, killing and wounding a lot!
At 6 a.m. on January 25, Russian satellite news reported that Thomas White, director of Gaza Strip affairs of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), confirmed that Israeli tanks fired two shells that hit the UNRWA building in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least nine people and injuring 75 others.
Earlier, the Israeli military announced that it had "besieged" Khan Younis and intensified its clearance operations against Palestinian Hamas. The UN building, which was hit by Israeli tanks, is used as a refugee shelter and is currently housing 800 homeless Palestinians.
Despite the fact that the building had been clearly declared a United Nations building and the coordinates had been communicated to the Israeli authorities, the Israeli army had opened fire with brazen fire. Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera in Arabic showed billowing smoke and furious flames rising from the building after the attack.
According to Palestinian television, Israel attacked an UNRWA center west of Khan Younis, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Thomas White said the death toll was "likely to be much higher," while Philippe Lazzarini, a senior U.N. official and head of UNRWA, condemned Israel for "yet another flagrant violation of the basic rules of war."
As the Israeli army continued to operate, more than a million people poured into Rafah, south of Khan Younis, near the Egyptian border. As recently as Tuesday, Lazzarini announced that the United Nations building had been "damaged in Israeli military operations" and that six people had been killed.
Relations between Israel and the United Nations are highly strained, and there have been many intentional or unintentional attacks on United Nations institutions in Gaza, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations and several United Nations agencies have publicly accused Israel of indiscriminate use of force against Gaza. On November 4, 2023, Sermea, the director of the Shifa Hospital, revealed that Israel launched an airstrike on the United Nations-run Fakura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, killing 15 people and injuring dozens more.
On the afternoon of November 20 local time, Israeli warplanes bombed a United Nations school in the area of the Buregie refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more. On November 2, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that two schools in the Jabaliya and Satie refugee camps in northern Gaza, as well as four UNRWA schools in Jabaliya, had been shelled by Israeli forces, killing more than 50 people.
On January 19, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East said in a report that more than 150 UN staff members had been killed by Israeli artillery fire in Gaza since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on October 7.
Since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not only has the United Nations suffered heavy losses under Israeli attacks, but the people of Gaza have suffered a serious humanitarian disaster. On January 23, the Gaza Strip government media office released information revealing that the death toll from Israeli military operations had risen to 25,490, mostly children and women, and that 63,354 people had been injured.