UNRWA: 15 months into Gaza war, atrocities continue before the world's eyes

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that 15 months after the genocide committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, "the atrocities continue before the eyes of the world."

“Fifteen months into the war in Gaza, the atrocities continue as the world watches,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.

He explained that about 258 UNRWA employees in Gaza have been killed since the beginning of the genocide in the Strip, while at least 20 employees are languishing in Israeli detention centers.

He said that employees inside detention centers are subjected to "systematic mistreatment, humiliation and torture," according to what was reported by previously released detainees, according to the statement.

UNRWA documented the killing of at least 745 Palestinians and the injury of 2,200 others in its shelters while seeking UN protection, the statement said.

Since October 7, 2023, UNRWA schools and a number of health centres have been converted into shelters for displaced persons whose homes were destroyed by Israel.

Over the months of the genocide, Israel deliberately bombed UNRWA schools and shelters, killing and wounding hundreds of displaced people, most of them children and women.

Lazzarini explained that more than two-thirds of UNRWA buildings were damaged or destroyed, noting that the vast majority of them were schools for children before the war.

He pointed out that UNRWA had verified the Israeli army's occupation of the UN agency's facilities in Gaza, without specifying their number or locations.

He stressed that UNRWA staff, buildings and activities have been subjected to a significant increase in attacks during the past three months in the northern Gaza Strip, coinciding with the escalation of Israeli military operations (since October 5).

He called for "independent investigations into the systematic disregard for the protection of humanitarian workers, facilities and operations," adding: "Impunity cannot become the norm."

He called for "the release of all detained humanitarian workers and all hostages, facilitating humanitarian access to those in need wherever they are, and lifting the blockade on Gaza to allow the entry of humanitarian supplies, including winter supplies."

Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has been waging a genocide in the Gaza Strip, leaving about 154,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Tel Aviv continues its massacres, ignoring two arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court on November 21 against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant, on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency