27 May 2024

Peace and Security

Dozens of people are believed to have died in an Israeli overnight attack on a camp for displaced Gazans in Rafah in the south of the enclave, the latest gruesome development in more than seven months of war between the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters, UN humanitarians said on Monday.

“Information coming out of Rafah about further attacks on families seeking shelter is horrifying,” the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said in a post on X, after reports of an Israeli military strike on a tented camp in Tal as-Sultan in northwest Rafah, along with other shelters to the north in Jabalia, Nuseirat and Gaza City. 

Unconfirmed images posted online showed shelters burned to the ground and charred bodies at the site of the Rafah attack.

“There are reports of mass causalities including children and women among those killed. Gaza is hell on earth. Images from last night are yet another testament to that,” UNRWA said. 

International condemnation

Echoing those comments and widespread international condemnation of the attack, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, called for “concerted global action” to halt the war, days since the UN’s top court called for an end to Israel’s expanding military operation in Rafah.

“Attacking women and children while they cower in their shelters in Rafah is a monstrous atrocity,” said Mr. Rajagopal, an independent human rights expert who is not a UN staff member.

“We need concerted global action to stop Israel’s actions now.”

In a statement, the Israeli army denied deliberately targeting civilians and said that the strike had planned for two senior Hamas figures. The attack was a “precise airstrike” in northwest Rafah that killed Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar - both operatives in the occupied West Bank - in line with international humanitarian law, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said. 

No place and no one is safe: UNRWA

In a separate social media post the UN agency also expressed concern about the safety and status of colleagues in Gaza with whom contact has been lost after the attack in Rafah. 

“We do not have an established communications line with our colleagues on the ground. We are not able to confirm their location and are extremely concerned for their wellbeing, and the wellbeing of all the displaced people sheltering in this area. No place is safe. No one is safe.”

In addition to the deadly threat of violence, UN humanitarians insisted that famine is still a daily danger for the people of Gaza.

Aid delivery delays continue

The warning comes amid an almost total halt to lifesaving aid convoy deliveries since the Israeli military seized Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza earlier this month, in response to a rocket attack on Kerem Shalom crossing on 5 May that resulted in the deaths of four Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers.

According to UNRWA’s online portal for UN relief items and fuel entering Gaza via Rafah and nearby Kerem Shalom, no aid trucks have made it into the enclave since last Sunday. 

“Aid is there, tens of kilometres away on the boundaries- while the population gets closer to famine,” UNRWA Director of Planning, Sam Rose, said in a post on X late Sunday. 

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also confirmed serious ongoing challenges receiving and delivering aid throughout Gaza, citing frequent delays, arbitrary checks access restrictions by the Israeli authorities.

Relief mission pressures 

Between 1 and 23 May, 31 aid missions were denied access and 40 were impeded, including by “extensive delays, detaining aid workers, firing warning shots and forcing the abortion of officially approved missions”, OCHA said in a post on X on Sunday.

“If food and humanitarian supplies do not begin to enter Gaza in massive quantities, desperation and hunger will spread, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) also warned on Monday, after UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern that the humanitarian operation was “near collapse”.

“The Secretary-General emphasizes that the Israeli authorities must facilitate the safe pickup and delivery of humanitarian supplies from Egypt entering Kerem Shalom to those in need,” the UN chief’s spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday, after the reported passage of aid relief and fuel from Egypt into Gaza via Kerem Shalom. 

“The Secretary-General reiterates his call for an immediate ceasefire and for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages to end the suffering of civilians,” the statement noted, adding that Mr. Guterres had been “dismayed” by the lack of implementation of the recent orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the situation in Gaza. 

“The decisions of the Court are binding,” the statement continued.


https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1150261