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A UN group said its school shelter was bombed during Israeli airstrikes, even after it gave everyone the facility's coordinates

Oct 18, 2023, 13:48 IST
Business Insider
A man walks in front of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building.Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
  • A United Nations relief group in the Gaza Strip said one of its refugee school shelters was bombed.
  • The UNRWA said it had given all parties coordinates to the shelter.
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At least six people were killed after a United Nations refugee school was bombed during Israeli airstrikes, said the relief agency running the shelter.

"This is outrageous, and it again shows a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians. No place is safe in Gaza anymore, not even UNRWA facilities," said Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Palestine, in a statement.

Lazzarini said the school is situated in the al-Maghazi refugee camp — which is in the middle of the Gaza Strip — and was hit despite the UNRWA providing coordinates of its facilities to all "relevant parties" every day since October 7.

"The school was hit during Israeli forces airstrikes and bombardment on the Gaza Strip," Lazzarini said.

Dozens of people, including UNRWA staff, were injured, and the school suffered "severe structural damage," he added.

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"The numbers are likely to be higher," said the commissioner-general, who issued the statement from Amman, Jordan.

The school is used as a shelter for around 4,000 people, Lazzarini said.

"They had and still have nowhere else to go," he said.

Displaced Palestinian citizens gather at the UNRWA school in Khan Yunis, after evacuating their homes that were damaged by Israeli airstrikes on October 15, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza.Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

Representatives for the Israel Defense Forces and the UNRWA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.

The World Health Organization has documented 48 attacks on health care in the Gaza Strip since October 7, when Israel began bombarding the region in response to a terrorist attack by Hamas.

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At least 24 hospitals were damaged during the bombings, and three facilities in northern Gaza had to be evacuated, per the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Meanwhile, at least 500 people are feared dead after an explosion rocked a hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces have blamed each other for the incident, with the Palestinian Health Ministry saying an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital. Israel said the cause was a misfired Hamas rocket.

The destruction at the hospital has ignited global outrage, with various parties in the international community saying they will investigate the blast.

At least 2,670 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October 7, per the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The IDF has pummeled the 140-square-mile region with bombs after Hamas militants carried out a mass terrorist attack along the Gaza border, which Israeli authorities said killed some 1,300 people.

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Hamas seized around 250 hostages, and has continued firing rockets into Israel. The IDF is expected to launch a ground invasion of Gaza so it can retrieve those kidnapped, but has not said when it plans to attack.

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