89 UN Aid Workers Killed in Gaza by Airstrikes

Agencies

Geneva: Since the latest round of Hamas-Israel war broke out a month ago, 89 UN aid workers have been killed, which is the highest number of UN employees killed in a conflict in the history of the global organisation, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said.

In its latest situation report, the UNRWA also added on Tuesday that nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since October 7, nearly 725,000 are sheltering in 149 UNRWA installations across all five governorates of Gaza, including in the north.

In the last 24 hours, one UNRWA school in the north of Gaza was directly hit by strikes, resulting in one person killed and nine injured among the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) sheltering in the school, it said.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, overcrowding in UN facilities in Gaza now remains a major concern, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the Khan Younis Training Centre, where 22,000 displaced people sought shelter, the space per person is less than two square metre, and there is one toilet for every 600 people.

10,328 people killed in Israel invasion in Gaza

The Ministry of Health in Gaza claimed that 10,328 people have been killed since the Israeli ground invasion in Gaza Strip began, of which 4,237 are children.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said this in a statement on Tuesday.

The ministry said that 21 attacks were unleashed by the Israeli army in the past few hours, leading to the death of 548 people in Gaza. The statement also said that 25,956 civilians have been grievously injured in the Israeli attacks.

 Al-Qudra said that 2,719 women and 631 elderly people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ground invasion commenced in Gaza, adding that 192 health personnel have been killed while 40 ambulances have been destroyed so far.

The ministry said, “As many as 2,450 persons are missing since the start of the aggression, including 1,350 children who are still under the rubble.”

The ministry also charged that the Israeli army has reiterated its threat to the Al-Rantisi Specialised Hospital for Children and wants its immediate evacuation, which puts the lives of sick and wounded children at risk.

The statement said that dozens of dead and injured are still lying on the roads between the governorates of the northern and southern Gaza Strip, and the Israeli army is not allowing ambulances to arrive to evacuate them.

The statement called upon the International Committee of the Red Cross to take urgent steps to coordinate and accompany ambulances to evacuate the martyrs and wounded from the corridors of death that the Israeli army has created to kill citizens, who are forced to move through them from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south.

The Ministry of Health also called upon the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to work immediately to activate international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect the health system and support its emergency medical and fuel needs, empower it and give it the full opportunity to carry out its functions in saving the lives of thousands of sick and wounded people.

The statement also called upon all concerned parties to work immediately to provide a safe humanitarian corridor for the entry of medical supplies, fuel, and medical personnel, and for the exit of thousands of wounded people.

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