According to a report by the Palestinian news agency WAFA on Friday, overnight Israeli attacks resulted in 47 Palestinian deaths, and injured numerous others. Many of the victims were women and children from Deir Al-Balah city, Nuseirat camp, and Al-Zawayda town in the central Gaza Strip.
In another incident, the United Nations’ refugee agency, Unrwa, reported that Israeli bulldozers had severely damaged their office in the West Bank’s Nur Shams camp to the point of it being untenable. This report came directly from Unrwa’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, who shared the information publicly on social media. Yet, Israel denied these claims.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) responded by stating that the damage to the Unrwa office was not their doing. Their statement claimed that terrorists had placed explosives near the office which caused the damage when detonated.
Subsequently, Israel has enacted a law which forbids Unrwa from operating in their country. This could have a significant effect on Unrwa’s work in Gaza, which has been ravaged by war. The justification for this law from the legislators was the alleged involvement of certain Unrwa staff in the attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023 and claims of Unrwa staff membership in Hamas and other armed groups.
The United Nations investigation into these allegations resulted in the dismissal of nine staff flagged as possibly involved in the October 7th attack. Unrwa maintained that the larger majority of its staff complied with the principle of neutrality.
Lazzarini denounced the ban on Unrwa operating in Israel as a violation of international law and a break in UN charter. He referred to it as setting a “dangerous precedent”. Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu retorted that every Unrwa worker who took part in “terrorist activities” needed to be held accountable. (Source: Reuters)