GAZA / PNN/

A UN employee was killed, and five others were injured on Wednesday when the Israeli occupation forces bombed a UN headquarters in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip.

Local Sources reported that a UN employee was killed, and five others were critically injured when the Israeli occupation forces bombed their UN headquarters. They were transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) announced the death of one of its employees in Gaza when a UN building in the central city of Deir el-Balah was hit by an unidentified piece of “explosive ordnance.”

The incident, which UNOPS said also left five people injured, came as Israel renewed its intense bombardment of the Palestinian territory, carrying out the deadliest wave of attacks since a January truce in its war against militant group Hamas.

International Outcry After UN Worker Killed in Israeli Attack

 

UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said in a statement that he was “shocked and devastated” by the staff member’s death.

“This was not an accident,” he said, adding that “attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law” and that UN personnel and premises “must be protected by all sides.”

Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said that one of its citizens working for the United Nations was killed in Gaza, without specifying where in the territory.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “was deeply saddened and shocked to learn of the death of a United Nations Office for Project Services staff member, when two UN guesthouses in Deir el-Balah were hit in strikes,” said spokesman Farhan Haq.

He added that at least 280 UN employees had been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.

‘Protect’ UN staff

Images showed two men who appeared to have leg injuries, and a third with bandages on both arms and his abdomen and traces of blood on his chest.

Two of the injured were wearing bulletproof vests, with one wearing a T-shirt of UNMAS, the United Nations Mine Action Service, underneath.

A UN source had initially said a second employee was killed. Haq said that was not the case, but that one of the five injured employees was in very critical condition. He did not provide the nationality of the dead employee.

“The locations of all UN premises are known to the parties to the conflict, who are bound by international law to protect them and maintain their absolute inviolability,” Haq said.

“The secretary-general strongly condemns all attacks on UN personnel and calls for a full investigation,” he added.

Haq said it was too early to “determine responsibility,” but that the explosion was not the result of a mine or unexploded ordnance, but rather an explosive that was “either dropped or fired at the infrastructure and detonated inside the building.”

“We do not know whether it was fired from land, from the sea, from the air,” he said.

The occupation forces resumed their aggression on the Gaza Strip at dawn yesterday, Tuesday, after a hiatus of more than two months.

This resulted in the killing of more than 400 citizens, the majority of whom were women and children, and hundreds more injured.

The resumption of the aggression on the Gaza Strip comes amid fears of a deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the Strip, given the ongoing blockade and the cutting off of medical and humanitarian supplies.

Since October 7, 2023, the occupation forces have launched an aggression on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of more than 48,572 citizens, the majority of whom were children and women, and the injury of 112,032 others. A number of victims remain under the rubble.

The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) Wednesday condemned the killing of a UN staff member in a suspected Israeli strike in the central Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini decried the killing of an employee of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in a suspected Israeli airstrike that targeted one of the body’s buildings in Deir al-Balah as “another black day for the UN in Gaza.”

“Condolences to our colleagues at UNOPS for this tragic loss and wishes for a smooth recovery to our injured colleagues,” Lazzarini posted on his X account.

He stressed the need to protect humanitarian personnel at all times and noted that the UN, including the UNRWA, continues to pay dearly while conducting its humanitarian duties.

The suspected Israeli airstrike resulted in at least five additional casualties, several of whom are very severely injured.

Three of the injured UNOPS personnel worked in support of the UN Mine Action Service Occupied Palestinian Territory program. Two of the injured UNOPS personnel worked in support of the UN 2720 Mechanism for Gaza, according to a UNOPS statement.

Israel unilaterally ended the Gaza ceasefire agreement and resumed its aggression on the Strip on Tuesday, March 18, carrying out a wave of bloody airstrikes across the Strip and killing hundreds of Palestinians, including over 100 children.

The death toll reached 436 with 678 others wounded, according to medical sources. Emergency teams are attempting to recover victims still trapped beneath the rubble.

The aggression was resumed amidst concerns over the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Strip given the ongoing siege and ban on the entry of medical and humanitarian aid.

Israel has waged a military onslaught on the Strip since October 2023, killing over 49,547 Palestinians, mostly women and children and injuring 112,719 others.

Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

 For his part British Foreign Secretary David Lamy called for an investigation into Israel's bombing of a UN headquarters in the Gaza Strip, which killed a foreign staff member and injured five others.

Lamy expressed his deep shock in a post on the X platform last night over the targeting of a UN headquarters in Gaza.

He said the incident must be investigated transparently, those responsible held accountable, and the UN and humanitarian workers protected.

The head of the UN Office for Project Services, Jorge Moreira da Silva, announced yesterday that a UN employee was killed and five others injured in an airstrike on Gaza, while the Israeli army continues its airstrikes without pause.