“They were teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, engineers, support and logistics personnel, and communications staff,” Philippe Lazzarini, General Commissioner for UNRWA denounced.” We have reached a tragic and devastating milestone that I hoped we would never see,” he stated.

Lazzarini highlighted that those people were devoted to serving their communities in the Gaza Strip. “Most of our colleagues were killed with their families at home or at a place they thought was safe. Several were killed in the line of duty as they provided humanitarian support to communities in need,” he stressed and affirmed that these deaths show once again that there is no safe place, and that no one in Gaza is safe.

“This number of mortal victims represents, by far, the greatest sum of personnel killed in a single conflict since the creation of the United Nations in 1945,” the commissioner stressed, and warned that “the UN will spare no effort to demand responsibility for the deaths of our staff.”

UNRWA warned several times over the last few months about a campaign promoted by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to force the agency to close.

Last week, the Israeli parliament approved three bills against UNRWA: one of them declares the agency terrorist, another prohibits its work in the country, and the third eliminates its legal privileges, including fiscal exemptions.

Both United Nations and numerous countries, including allies of Israel, condemned such initiatives. Palestine authorities also denounced those measures, whose goal, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is to “eliminate the matter of refugees and their inalienable rights to return” to their lands.

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