The UN World Food Programme (WFP) temporarily suspended the movement of its staff through the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, saying at least 10 bullets hit one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.
WFP under fire
The WFP statement said the convoy of two armoured vehicles had received “repeated permission from the Israeli authorities to approach” the Wadi Gaza Bridge crossing on Tuesday night. Bullets struck one of the vehicles, but none of the passengers were injured. The WFP said:
“Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war, it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances.”
It also said the vehicle was “a few metres” away from the Israeli checkpoint at the time of the shooting.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that the incident was under review. It said in a statement:
“The State of Israel is committed to improve co-ordination and security with humanitarian organisations to ensure the effective delivery of aid within the Gaza Strip.”
There have already been incidents during the war when humanitarian organisations have come under fire. In April, three Israeli airstrikes hit a convoy of aid vehicles travelling through Gaza, killing seven World Central Kitchen staff.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that aid operations in Gaza are “severely constrained due to hostilities, insecurity and mass evacuation orders affecting aid transport routes and facilities.”
The UN Security Council will meet on Thursday at the request of Britain and Switzerland on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The British UN mission posted X:
“The UN has warned aid operations and staff in Gaza are at risk, at a time when a vaccine campaign is urgently needed to stop a polio outbreak.”
The UN has long complained about the obstacles to getting aid into Gaza during the war and distributing it amid “total lawlessness” in the enclave.
Amnesty International statement
Israeli forces failed to take every possible precaution to avoid or minimise harm to civilians sheltering in camps for internally displaced persons in two attacks targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad in southern Gaza in May, according to a new Amnesty International investigation published on August 27.
Amnesty says the attacks were likely indiscriminate and one attack was probably disproportionate, and all should be investigated as possible war crimes.
On May 26, two Israeli airstrikes on the Kuwaiti Peace Camp, a temporary camp for internally displaced persons in Tal al-Sultan, west of Rafah, killed at least 36 people, including six children, and injured more than 100. At least four of those killed were militants. The airstrike, which targeted two Hamas commanders among displaced civilians, consisted of two US-made GBU-39 guided bombs.
The use of these munitions, which scatter deadly shrapnel over a wide area, in a camp with civilians in overcrowded shelters, probably constituted a disproportionate and indiscriminate attack and should be investigated as a war crime.
In the second incident, on May 28, the Israeli military fired at least three tank shells into the Al-Mawasi neighbourhood of Rafah, which had been declared a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli military. The shelling killed 23 civilians, including 12 children, seven women and four men, and wounded many others. An Amnesty investigation found that the apparent targets of the attack were one Hamas fighter and one Islamic Jihad fighter. The attack, which failed to distinguish between civilians and military targets and used unguided munitions in an area full of civilians sheltering in tents, was likely indiscriminate and should be investigated as a war crime.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were in a camp for internally displaced persons, a place labelled as a “humanitarian zone” according to the displaced, and the fighters knowingly endangered civilian lives. This likely violated a commitment to avoid, as far as possible, placing fighters in densely populated areas. Amnesty has no information on the reasons or motivations for their presence, but all parties to the conflict should have taken all possible precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects.
Amnesty interviewed 14 survivors and witnesses, inspected the sites of the attacks, visited the Khan Younis hospital where the wounded were treated, photographed remnants of ammunition used in the attacks, examined satellite imagery of the area, and read relevant Israeli military statements on the attacks. On June 24, Amnesty sent questions regarding the two attacks to the Israeli authorities, and on July 5 to the Chief Prosecutor and Ministry of Justice representatives in the de facto Hamas administration, asking about the presence of militants in these civilian areas. At the time of publication, no responses had been received.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said:
“While these strikes may have targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and fighters, once again displaced Palestinian civilians seeking shelter and safety have paid with their lives.”
Israeli offensive continues, death toll rises
On Thursday, Israeli rockets and missiles killed and injured dozens of Palestinians, including children and women, in various parts of the devastated, destroyed, starved and besieged Gaza Strip.
One girl was killed and many Palestinians were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, accompanied by artillery shelling and firing from military vehicles and drones in areas northwest of Nuseirat and northeast of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Medical sources said that two Palestinian children and a woman were killed when two houses in Nuseirat refugee camp and Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip were shelled. They also confirmed that ambulance and civil defence teams found the bodies of two children after army shelling on a house in Nuseirat, and the body of a woman was found after army shelling on a house in Deir al-Balah.
Israeli soldiers continued shelling Nuseirat, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City, causing many casualties, including dead Palestinians who were left under the rubble.
An airstrike on a house belonging to the Al-Jedi family on Al-Eshrin Street, east of Nuseirat camp, injured five citizens who were taken to Al-Awda Hospital.
In addition, rescuers recovered the bodies of four Palestinians after an airstrike on Al-Oribi neighbourhood, north of Rafah city in the southernmost Gaza Strip, while the army continued shelling and bombing homes and buildings.
Number of UNRWA employees killed in Gaza
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) confirmed that 212 UN staff members have been killed in the ongoing Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip since October last year.
The aid agency said in a statement that since the beginning of the military conflict, UN agencies have been attacked some 464 times despite being home to more than 1.5 million displaced people. This has resulted in more than 563 Palestinians killed and some 1,790 others injured.
UNRWA added that 600,000 children are unable to attend school due to the ongoing Israeli offensive, destruction and displacement, and stressed that the health and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic, with disease and infectious epidemics spreading among displaced Palestinians.
Since October 7 2023, hostilities have killed at least 40,534 Palestinians, including 16,589 children and 11,207 women, and injured more than 93,778 people, mostly children and women, in addition to thousands who remain under rubble, in destroyed streets and in shelled alleys in various parts of the Gaza Strip.
