A senior UN official said Saturday that teachers and other UN staff working in Gaza fear they are now targets after an Israeli air strike hit a school-turned-shelter in the territory this week.
Wednesday's strike on the UN-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza, which is housing displaced Palestinians, killed 18 people. including six employees of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
It was the deadliest single incident for the agency in more than 11 months of war and drew international condemnation.
"One colleague said that they're not wearing the UNRWA vest anymore because they feel that that turns them into a target," UNRWA senior deputy director Sam Rose told AFP on Saturday after visiting the shelter in Nuseirat.
"Another one said that that morning, their children had stopped them from coming into the shelter," he said in an online interview from Gaza.
The colleagues were gathering for a post-work meal in a classroom when the strike flattened part of the building, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.
"A son of one of the staff had brought a meal into the building," Rose said, adding the group then debated whether to eat it in the principal's office before settling on what appeared to be a classroom decorated with pictures of scientists.
"They were eating when the bomb hit."
The Israeli military said it had conducted a "precise strike" on Hamas militants within the school grounds and had taken steps to reduce the risk to civilians.
– 'Bereft and desperate' –
The Israeli military published what it said was a list of nine militants killed in the Nuseirat strike, including three it said were employees of UNRWA.
An Israeli government spokesman said the school had become "a legitimate target" because it was used by Hamas to launch attacks.
Rose said such statements further battered morale among UN staffers still at the school, where thousands have sought shelter from a war that has displaced nearly all of Gaza's 2.4 million population at least once.
"They were particularly angry by the allegations that had been made as to the involvement of their colleagues in extremist and terrorist activities," Rose said.
"They felt that this really was a stain on the memory of dear colleagues, dear friends," he added, describing the mood as "bereft" and "desperate".
UNRWA has said at least 220 members of the agency's staff have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliation has killed at least 41,182 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
On Friday, UNRWA announced one of its employees was killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, the first such death in the territory in more than a decade.
UNRWA has more than 30,000 employees in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere.
It has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its employees of being involved in the October 7 attack.
The UN immediately fired the implicated staff members, and a probe found some "neutrality related issues" but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its main allegations.
Gaza rescuers say 11 dead in Israeli strike on house
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) Sept 14, 2024 –
Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday that an Israeli air strike hit a house in Gaza City where displaced Palestinians had taken refuge, killing 11 people, while Israel said it struck a Hamas militant.
"We have recovered the bodies of 11 martyrs, including four children and three women, after an Israeli warplane hit a three-storey house of the Bustan family," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
He said that the house in the eastern Al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City was hit at around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Friday).
"Several families had taken refuge in the house targeted with a single missile without any prior warning," Bassal said, adding that many others were wounded.
Bassal said rescuers were continuing to search for people still missing.
The Israeli military said its forces had carried out a strike in the area overnight.
"The IDF struck the commander of a Hamas terrorist cell in the area of Daraj Tuffah, who was involved in the planning and execution of terrorist activities against IDF troops and the State of Israel," the military said in a statement to AFP.
"The IDF is aware of claims that several civilians were killed as a result of the strike."
Bassal said Israeli forces carried out similar strikes in other parts of the Hamas-run territory overnight, killing at least 10 people.
Five people were killed in northwestern Gaza City when an air strike hit a group of people near Dar Al-Arqam school, he said.
Further south, three others were killed in a strike in the Al-Mawasi area, where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge, Bassal added.
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 resulting in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 captives during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 41,182 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not provide breakdowns of civilian and militant deaths.
