Six United Nations aid workers killed by Israeli air strikes

At least 34 people including children killed in Gaza as UN records ‘highest death toll among our staff in a single incident’

The United Nation’s chief has heavily criticised Israel after a deadly air strike that reportedly killed 18 people, including six UN aid workers.
Antonio Guterres condemned the strike that flattened a former school in Nuseirat in central Gaza, calling it “totally unacceptable”.
“These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now,” Mr Guterres said, adding that 12,000 people were sheltering in the al-Jaouni school.
The UNRWA, which works with Palestinian refugees, called it “the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident”. At least 44 are also said to have been injured.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s most senior diplomat, said he was “outraged” by the bombing, while the US called on Israel to protect humanitarian sites.
Israel has been condemned by the international community for the high death toll among aid workers, with nearly 300 killed since Hamas launched the war on October 7, according to the UN.
It is the fifth time the school compound has been targeted since the start of the war, UNRWA said.
Survivors of the strike described scrambling over “shredded limbs” as they tried to retrieve bodies and belongings from the rubble.
“I can hardly stand up,” a man holding a plastic bag of human remains told AFP.
The IDF said that they carried out “precise strikes on terrorists” who were operating inside a “command and control” centre embedded within the school, which has not been in use since October.
IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said the army IDF requested that UNRWA provide details and names of the killed workers, in order to “thoroughly review the claim.”
“To date, no answers have been provided by UNRWA despite repeated requests,” Mr Shoshani said. In response, UNRWA spokesman Juliette Touma said the agency was “not aware of any such requests”.
A colleague of the killed UN workers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the group had just sat down to lunch when Israel bombed the school.
“Suddenly, I heard a big explosion. Everything shook. I ran back to see that they had all vanished… all torn to pieces,” she told CNN.
She said that all six had worked as teachers at the school before the war. “They are all loved by everyone. They helped and provided aid to everyone,” she added.
Earlier this year, nine UNRWA workers were fired earlier this year after the agency reviewed Israeli evidence of their participation in the October 7 massacre.
The agency has also come under fire in recent years for its school books which contain antisemitism and glorification of terror and jihad.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, meanwhile took aim at Hamas, saying the terror group is trying to “conceal the fact that it continues to oppose a deal to release the hostages, and is foiling it.”
Israeli forces reportedly carried out a “special operation” in the Syrian city of Masyaf last week in which military helicopters and drones attacked a facility belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The operation, revealed by Middle East analyst Eva Koulouriotis Eva J Koulourioti, who cited security sources, was aimed at a facility where the IRGC is developing ballistic missiles and drones for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Residents were reported to have heard loud sounds of explosions coming from the area as the Israeli special forces carried out the hour-long raid.
The IDF reportedly retrieved “important equipment and documents” and then destroyed the facility, which was reportedly also targeted last year, under air cover to avoid attacks from Syrian warplanes.
Israel has carried out numerous airstrikes in Syria since the civil war began, largely targeting weapons convoys and military facilities belonging to Iran and Hezbollah.