At least four killed in Israeli airstrike on UNRWA aid center in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict news

The complex’s main gate, which facilitates aid distribution and accommodation for displaced people, was hit in the attack.

At least four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike near an aid center that was the main headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip.

Sunday’s airstrike hit the main gate of the organization’s compound in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, injuring several Palestinians. The facility is used to distribute what little humanitarian aid reaches Gaza.

Hundreds of people displaced by the Israeli military’s ground invasion of Gaza were sheltering inside the facility at the time of the incident.

A Palestinian woman present at the scene told Al Jazeera that she saw many dead bodies and that two of her children were injured in the attack.

“What did these innocent children do wrong? They are running from death to death. Young men and women are massacred by the Israelis,” she said.

Nowhere is safe in #Gaza.

According to @GlobalEdCluster69% of school buildings where displaced families sought shelter were directly hit or damaged.

This blatant disregard for humanitarian law must end. We need a #CeasefireNow. pic.twitter.com/izwPNeKOVC

-UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 23, 2024

The attack follows a series of attacks across the city the previous day, including in the Shati and Tufah camps, where displaced Palestinians in the north were told to seek refuge by the Israeli military. At least 42 Palestinians were killed in these attacks.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 101 Palestinians had been killed in the previous 24 hours, with 169 injured.

This marked the deadliest day since the June 8 massacre at the Nuseirat refugee camp, which killed at least 274 Palestinians and injured hundreds more in a daytime operation that led to the rescue of four Israeli prisoners.

Israeli forces have killed 37,598 Palestinians and injured another 86,032 people, many of them children and women, in more than eight months of a devastating military offensive, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Israeli attacks on aid distribution and UN facilities continue despite international condemnation and calls for an immediate ceasefire and increased aid to avoid the deadly consequences of the blockade of food, fuel and medicine in Gaza.

According to UNRWA, there have been a reported 445 attacks carried out by the Israeli military that have damaged 188 different United Nations installations since the start of the war. At least 500 displaced Palestinians were killed while taking refuge in the facilities, with 1,547 injured.

The Israeli military has also killed a record number of 193 UN staff since 7 October.

Meanwhile, aid is accumulating and rotting outside the Gaza Strip, due to a complex bureaucratic procedure established by the Israeli military, and the security challenges of operating within the enclave are preventing war-hit Palestinians from obtaining aid.