At least 101 staffers from the UN’s Palestine refugee agency UNRWA have been killed in just a month, UNRWA has now confirmed.
They are “parents, teachers, nurses and doctors, support staff”, wrote agency head Philippe Lazzarini in a tweet earlier. “UNRWA is mourning, Palestinians are mourning, Israelis mourning. Ending this tragedy needs a humanitarian ceasefire now”.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s communications chief said there were likely to be many more staffers and their family members, who have been buried under the mounting rubble of Gaza.
Speaking to the “particularly intense” strikes on hospitals and in the vicinity of hospitals in Gaza City,UN rights chief Volker Türk stressed that international humanitarian law extends special protection to medical units and requires that they be protected and respected at all times.
“Any use by Palestinian armed groups of civilians and civilian objects to shield themselves from attack is in contravention of the laws of war. But such conduct by Palestinian armed groups does not absolve Israel of its obligation to ensure that civilians are spared – that the principles of distinction, precautions in attack and proportionality are respected,” he said.
The UN rights chief also said that it was “extremely distressing” to see what is happening to UN staff in Gaza – the loss of life among UNRWA colleagues “is unprecedented”.
Mr. Türk called “unacceptable” the fact that in UNRWA-run schools over 600 displaced people seeking shelter have been killed or injured. “There is a principle of inviolability of UN premises,” he insisted.https://news.un.org/en/media/oembed?url=https%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DuiNfba5Rovo&max_width=0&max_height=0&hash=6NnGh6YClZCw1EYJ9rZyjrsjM2t_gdxOrMuaarGtn4w
West Bank: ‘end the cycle of violence’
Turning to the occupied West Bank, Mr. Türk called on the Israeli authorities to ensure protection of Palestinians there as they face daily “violence from Israeli forces and settlers, ill treatment, arrests, evictions, intimidation and humiliation”.
About 200 Palestinians had already been killed in the West Bank before 7 October and a further 176 have been killed since then, Mr. Türk said. Settler violence was destroying lives and livelihoods and fuelling displacement amid continued impunity.
Mr. Türk urged the Israeli authorities to implement the recommendations of his Office’s “numerous human rights reports on the Occupied Palestinian Territory” issued throughout the years and heed calls for “meaningful investigations and accountability to end this cycle of violence and vengeance against entire communities”.
“Where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out such investigations, and where there are contested narratives on particularly significant incidents, there needs to be independent, international investigation,” he said.
“Water is scarce and fear is pervasive” in Gaza, Mr. Türk told journalists in Amman, recounting a conversation he had minutes earlier with a colleague in Gaza who had to flee Israeli bombardments with his family.
“His children, aged nine and seven, are asking him questions he does not know how to answer: ‘Why is this happening to us? What did we do?’”