The UN Secretary General takes the “difficult decision” to withdraw 30% of Gaza’s foreign staff in the midst of Israeli attacks.
The United Nations announced that it would reduce the size of its international team on the ground in Gaza after having renewed attacks against Palestinian territory by Israeli forces killed hundreds of civilians, including UN staff.
UN spokesperson Stephan Dujarric said in a drop in press on Monday that around 30 of the hundreds of UN international staff would leave Gaza this week, admitting that the withdrawal arrives at a time when humanitarian needs have skyrocketed and “concerns about the protection of civilians is intensifying”.
Dujarric said that “temporary measure” was a “difficult decision” made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for security and operational reasons.
The UN spokesman also confirmed that an Israeli reservoir was responsible for the attack on a United Nations complex in Deir El-Balah, Central Gaza, on March 19, who killed a member of the United Nations Bulgarian staff and left six other foreign employees with serious injuries.
Dujarric’s Declaration was the first of the UN to involve Israeli forces in the attack of the United Nations clearly marked site. He came after the army of Israel has repeatedly denied that she was responsible for the strike, which one day came after Israel broke up his cease-fire agreement with Hamas after only two months of relative peace.
Gabriel Elizondo d’Tel Aviv Tribune, postponing the UN headquarters to New York, said that the reduction of staff applies to international workers, and that the UN still has thousands of Palestinian people in Gaza, whose hundreds have been killed since the start of the War of Israel against the territory.
“The UN has more than 13,000 employees in Gaza, the vast majority of them are Palestinians who work as doctors, nurses, engines and perform other very important humanitarian jobs in Gaza,” said Elizondo.
“More than 250 have been killed in the past 15 months, but now, the secretary general says that the situation is so dangerous that 100 UN Gaza employees employed by the UN, he will reduce this staff endowment by around one third, or approximately 30 of these international employees, who will leave Gaza for their own safety,” said Elizondo.
Dujarric also said that Secretary -General Guterres had demanded “a complete, in -depth and independent investigation” on the tank attack against the United Nations complex on March 19.
Israel said he had struck a Hamas site where preparations were made to shoot Israeli territory.
When asked if the UN thought that the attack on Israeli tanks was a deliberate strike on the UN facilities, that the Israeli forces knew Dujarric’s exact location: “I think that is one of the reasons why we must have a fairly clear and transparent investigation.”
On Monday, the Israeli army admitted to having shot a building belonging to the Rafah Rafah cross, south of Gaza, accusing the attack against the humanitarian organization clearly marked as a case of erroneous identity.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that its office in Rafah had been damaged by an explosive projectile, although no personal was injured. The damage had a direct impact on the CICR’s ability to operate, the organization said, without specifying who was behind the explosion.
Since October 7, 2023, the War of Israel against Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and injured about 113,200 more in the territory, health officials said.
