At least nine people were killed and 75 others injured after an Israeli tank attack on a UN shelter in Gaza sparked a fire, according to the United Nations aid agency in the region.
Thomas White, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said two tank rounds had hit the organization’s Khan Younis Training Center on Wednesday, where about 800 people were sheltering.
Video that went viral on social media showed Palestinians fleeing the two-story shelter as flames engulfed the vocational school and billowed black smoke into the sky.
“The building burned and there were many casualties,” White wrote on the X following the strike. “Safe access to and from the center has been denied for two days. People are trapped.”
An UNRWA vocational training center caught fire after two missiles hit it on Wednesday. The Palestinian Authority carries away the body of one of at least nine people killed in the explosion and fire. AP
White said that medics from the UN and the World Health Organization (WHO) had escaped and confirmed at least nine deaths as they worked to clear the area.
He claims this is just the latest incident where civilians have been caught in the middle of Israel and Hamas’ fierce fighting in Khan Younis in recent days.
“There has been fighting in and around this area for two days, and we are in constant contact with the Israeli military who have given us assurances that people in protected facilities, such as shelters with UN flags, or hospitals, are safe,” White told CNN Wednesday. .
“The reality is that lives have been lost in and around these facilities in recent days… We had no warning when strikes occurred in and around these protected facilities,” he added.
Medics rushed to the area to help treat the 75 refugees injured as a result of the incident. AP Mourning prays for those killed in recent Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, the largest town in southern Gaza where refugees have gathered. Reuters
The IDF has yet to comment on the explosion and shooting at the UNRWA shelter. The Israeli army, however, admitted that its forces remain active in Khan Younis as they seek to “dismantle the military framework of Hamas.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus condemned the attack on the training center as “appalling” and called for an end to the civilian deaths in Khan Younis.
Deputy US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel described the casualties at the shelter as “extremely troubling” during a news briefing Wednesday.
More than a million refugees have made their way to the southern city of Rafa, where Israeli airstrikes killed scores of people on Wednesday. Getty Images Bodies in Rafa are gathered together as the death toll in Gaza nears 26,000. Getty Images
“We regret today’s attack on the UN’s Khan Younis training center,” Patel told reporters. “Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of UN facilities must be respected.
“Humanitarian workers must be protected so they can continue to provide the life-saving humanitarian aid they need to civilians,” he added.
The attack on the shelter came as fighting in Khan Younis also left thousands trapped inside the Nasser Hospital complex as Israel and Hamas battled around the medical facility.
Nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the war continue to migrate south in Gaza to escape the fighting between Israel and Hamas. AP
Doctors Without Borders said its crew was trapped inside Nasser Hospital along with about 850 patients and thousands of refugees because of the fighting.
Humanitarian groups also fear the hospital itself will be hit after Israel issued orders for mass evacuations in the area as the IDF continues its advance in southern Gaza.
Nasser is one of only two hospitals in the south still able to treat critically ill patients, according to Doctors Without Borders.
White told CNN that following Israeli orders, “tens of thousands of people are on the streets again” fleeing further south to the Egyptian border after nearly 2 million Gazans have been displaced by the war.
With at least 210 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours – and nearly 26,000 killed since the war began, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health – White said there was little civilians could do to avoid falling victim to the conflict.
“No one imagined the level of death, destruction and displacement we have seen in the last three months,” he told the outlet.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
