A member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) checks the courtyard of the al-Jaouni school after an Israeli attack, at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on September 11, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Gaza City, September 12 (RHC)-- The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) says six of its employees are among at least 18 people killed in an Israeli aerial assault on a school in the central Gaza Strip. Eye-witnesses say “women and children were blown to pieces” in the assault.
In a statement released on Thursday, UNRWA said Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes targeting the UN-run al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp resulted in "the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident” since the occupying regime waged a genocidal war on Gaza more than 11 months ago.
"Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people," it added. UNRWA also said the al-Jaouni school, home to around 12,000 displaced Palestinians- mainly women and children, has been hit five times since the Israeli aggression began.
“No one is safe in Gaza. No one is spared,” it emphasized. “Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times. They must not be a target.”
In an X post, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the deaths demonstrated “very dramatic violations of the international humanitarian law and the total absence of an effective protection of civilians.”
Meanwhile, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the agency's staff who were killed had been providing support to families sheltering in the al-Jaouni school. “Humanitarian staff, premises & operations have been blatantly & unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war,” he asserted.
Lazzarini further noted that at least 220 UNRWA employees have been killed during the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
The Israeli military claimed that the school had been used by members of the Hamas resistance group to “plan and execute” attacks against the occupation troops. However, a survivor said the section of the school that was hit by Israel had been “dedicated only to women.”
“All of a sudden there was a huge explosion … Women and children were blown to pieces. We rushed to see our children but found them torn to pieces,” he told Al Jazeera.
Another survivor said she had lost all of her six children in the Israeli attack, adding, “What crime, what wrong did those innocent children do?”
Israel waged its brutal Gaza offensive on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured at least 95,029 others.
