The United Nations said Israeli forces on Wednesday hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one staff member from the agency and wounding 22 others.
The death brings to 165 the number of workers for the agency, known as UNRWA, killed during the past five months of conflict between Israel and Hamas, according to UNRWA.
Gaza’s health authorities said a total of five people were killed in the strike on the yard of an UNRWA warehouse.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the agency shares the coordinates of its Gaza facilities with Israel every day, and called for an independent inquiry into attacks on its facilities.
“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,’’ Lazzarini said.
“Since this war began, attacks against UN facilities, convoys and personnel have become commonplace in blatant disregard to international humanitarian law,” he said.
Israel has accused 12 of UNRWA’s thousands of employees of participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. Last week, it escalated the accusations, alleging 450 UNRWA employees were members of armed groups in Gaza, though it has provided no evidence.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says the bodies of 88 people killed in Israel’s bombardment have been brought to local hospitals in the last 24 hours.
That brings the war’s overall death toll among Palestinians to 31,272, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies.
The ministry said around two-thirds of the dead are women and children, and that the real overall toll is higher because bodies are buried under the rubble or in areas that medics can’t access.
The ministry says over 73,000 people have been wounded in the war.
Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas. The Israeli military says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.
The war erupted after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Hamas is still holding around 100 hostages, and the remains of around 30 others, after freeing most of the rest in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners last year.
