Killing of UN staff in Israeli strike on Gaza school is appalling, says Lammy

The deaths of six UN workers in an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza has been described as “appalling” by David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said its employees were killed in the strike in central Gaza. The UN school, housing about 12,000 displaced people, mostly women and children, has been attacked at least five times since Israel launched an air and ground offensive in Gaza last October, Unrwa said.

“Reports of six Unrwa staff members being killed in an Israeli strike are appalling,” Mr Lammy said. “My thoughts are with their families and all those who continue to carry out lifesaving work. Aid workers must be able to do their jobs safely.”

Simon Harris, the prime minister of Ireland, said: “We must ensure accountability for those who perpetrate war crimes. I look forward to extending my condolences in person to UN secretary general [Antonio] Guterres when I visit the UN later this month. I again call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages and unimpeded access to aid in Gaza.”

The attack on Wednesday on the al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School in the Nuseirat refugee camp was the deadliest ever for its staff, Unrwa, said. The Civil Defence agency in Hamas-run Gaza said a total of 18 people had been killed, with a number of others injured.

The senior deputy director of Unrwa affairs in Gaza, Sam Rose, told Al Jazeera that staff at the agency are “despairing”.

“Staff in the offices are in shock. The scale and the rapidity of the incidents are just too difficult for us to get our head around sometimes,” he said.

The Israeli military claimed its strike targeted a Hamas command and control centre in Nuseirat as part of its war inside Gaza. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilian buildings and infrastructure in Gaza, without providing any evidence.

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Unrwa director Philippe Lazzarini said: “Humanitarian staff, premises and operations have been blatantly and unabatedly disregarded since the start of the war”. In July, 16 people were killed in a strike at the school, according to Palestinian officials. The Israeli military said it had targeted several structures at the school used by Hamas fighters.

Mr Guterres expressed his outrage at the strike, saying: “What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable. These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now.”

Responding to that condemnation, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said: “It is unconscionable that the UN continues to condemn Israel in its just war against terrorists, while Hamas continues to use women and children as human shields,” he said.

The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas launched an attack inside Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,000 people and taking 250 hostages. In response, Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air and ground. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, health officials in the strip have said. It has also displaced nearly 90 per cent of the territory’s 2.3 million population, many multiple times.

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The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in August that 280 aid workers were killed in 33 countries in 2023, and this year “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome”. It added that more than half of last year’s deaths occurred in the first three months of the Israeli war on Gaza.

In another attack on Wednesday an Israeli airstrike on a home near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killed 11 people, including six brothers and sisters aged 21 months to 21 years.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers conducted raids in several towns backed by airstrikes, killing at least eight people. One airstrike killed five people the military said were militants threatening its troops. A second strike on a car killed at least three people, Gaza’s health ministry said.