Gaza: UN halts operations temporarily following Israeli killing of aid workers
UN humanitarians in Gaza have suspended operations temporarily for 48 hours following the killing of seven aid workers.
The seven aid workers from the NGO World Centre Kitchen were killed in an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.
The move will allow for further evaluation of the security issues that impact both personnel on the ground and the people they are trying to serve.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing reporters in New York.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) reports that daytime operations are continuing, including ongoing efforts to get food aid convoys into northern Gaza.
World Central Kitchen and other charities have suspended aid operations which has had a “double impact” in the Gaza Strip, Mr Dujarric said in response to a reporter’s question.
“It has a real impact on people who depend on these organisations to receive aid,” he said.
“But it also has a psychological and chilling effect on humanitarian workers, both Palestinians and international, who continue to do their utmost to deliver aid to those who need it at great personal risk.”
The World Central Kitchen staff, consisting of local and international personnel, were killed in multiple Israeli airstrikes on their convoy while departing their warehouse in Deir al Balah in central Gaza.
The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said he was horrified by the killing of the seven humanitarian workers, noting that their cars were marked and should never have been attacked.
“This horrific incident highlights the extreme danger under which WHO colleagues and our partners are working – and will continue to work,” Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said, speaking in Geneva.
WHO has been working with World Central Kitchen to deliver food to health workers and patients in Gaza hospitals.
Mr Ghebreyesus underlined the need for safe humanitarian access through the establishment of “an effective and transparent mechanism for deconfliction”.
He also called for “more entry points, including in northern Gaza, cleared roads, and predictable and expedited passage through checkpoints.”
The findings will be shared with World Central Kitchen and other relevant international organisations.
WHO again requested authorisation to travel to the destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the wake of the end of the two-week Israeli military siege.
Mr Ghebreyesus said teams have been trying to seek permission to access what is left of the hospital, to speak with staff, and to see what can be saved “but at the moment, the situation looks disastrous.”
Al-Shifa was the largest hospital and main referral centre in the Gaza Strip, containing 750 beds, 26 operating rooms, 32 intensive care rooms, a dialysis department and a central laboratory.
The WHO chief reiterated his call to respect and protect hospitals which “must not be used as battlefields.”
Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, is working with the Palestine Red Crescent Society to assist in the repatriation of the remains of the international staff from World Central Kitchen.
“According to the Israeli military, an initial investigation found that the strike was a ‘grave mistake’ due to a misidentification.
Israeli authorities said that a new humanitarian command centre will be established to improve the coordination of aid distribution, while a full independent investigation will be completed over the coming days.
Two experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council have joined the growing international condemnation over the wholesale destruction and killing at Al-Shifa Hospital.
Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right to physical and mental health, and Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, called for the international community to take action.
