Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 7th June. UN agencies reported on Thursday that dozens dead in Israeli strike on UNRWA school in Gaza over night, warned cholera and other potentially deadly diseases plagued people uprooted by the war, forced to live among “mountains of rubbish”.
UN agency for Palestinian refugees told “UNRWA can confirm that one of our schools in the Nuseirat area (Middle Areas) was hit overnight / early morning by Israeli Forces. The school was possibly hit several times,”
“The number of those reported killed is between 35 and 45. Scores others are injured. We are not able to confirm the above figure at this stage.”
Local officials in Gaza reported that 37 people were killed in the school building attack in Nuseirat refugee camp near Deir Al Balah in central Gaza. The toll included 14 children, it was also reported.
Media cited the Israeli military that the strike’s objective was to eliminate Hamas operatives and that it was only given the go-ahead after aerial surveillance, with additional measures taken to reduce the risk to civilians.
UNRWA said that 6,000 people had been sheltering on the premises.
Over 180 buildings belonged to the UN agency have been hit, killed 450 displaced people in those facilities.
“The vast majority” were schools-turned-shelters, UNRWA said, as it issued a reminder “to all parties to the conflict that schools and other UN premises must never be used for military or fighting purposes…UN facilities must be protected at all times”.
The development came as humanitarians issued alerts about the already dire sanitary emergency in Gaza, as civilians displaced by the war “have no choice but to live amid the rubble and in destroyed UNRWA facilities”.
UN agency stated that aid teams were allowed to pick up “just under 450 trucks in the past three weeks in support of the humanitarian operation. This is nothing in the face of the needs,” UNRWA said.
It insisted that at least 600 trucks per day “of commercial, fuel and humanitarian supplies” are required to help people facing famine and death in Gaza.
“Fuel is running short: our teams are standing by to pick it up when the Israeli Authorities give the green light,” UNRWA said.
It highlighted “horrific” scenes of devastation from Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza, home to thousands of displaced people.
UNRWA update said “All eyes are on the proposal to reach an end to this war through a ceasefire, the release of all hostages and substantial and safe flow of urgently needed supplies into Gaza,” as the US and 16 other countries expressed their full support for the ceasefire and hostage release proposal presented by President Biden on 31 May.
As summer temperatures rise, humanitarians expressed deep concerns that preventable disease outbreaks could spread more widely.
UNICEF head Catherine Russell said on X “Children in Gaza are living alongside mountains of trash and raw sewage as basic services reach a breaking point amid continued fighting and displacement,”.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the lack of clean drinking water has fuelled warnings that cholera may strike too, just as healthcare provision remains “crippled”.
“Intense hostilities have severely crippled health care provision in Rafah where tens of thousands of vulnerable people still remain,” he said in post on X.
He noted that the partner medical NGO International Medical Corps had moved its 160-bed field hospital from Al-Mawasi to the west of Rafah to its existing facility in Deir Al Balah.
Tedros stressed that the only functioning field hospital in Al-Mawasi was the one run by the International Committee of the Red Cross. In Rafah city, only the United Arab Emirates field hospital currently provides health services “but is increasingly difficult to reach due to hostilities”, Tedros said.
UN top aid official in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Muhannad Hadi warned of rising violence, bloodshed and killings, mainly of Palestinians in West Bank.
“While all eyes are on Gaza, the people of the West Bank must also be supported and protected. The situation here is volatile,” said Muhannad Hadi. “We can’t wait for the West Bank to become another Gaza.”
Mr. Hadi’s comments followed meetings with Palestinian herding and Bedouin communities in the central West Bank on Wednesday.
OCHA said in a scheduled update that members and organizations supporting the Palestinian communities reported “heightened violence, settler activities, access restrictions, demolitions and other coercive policies and practices”.
It reported that Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian men near a military gate located in the Barrier west of Tulkarm city on Tuesday, “after the two men reportedly opened fire at them. Their corpses have been withheld by Israeli forces”.
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