The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday that reports of attacks on families seeking safe haven in Rafah on the southern end of the Gaza Strip were “horrifying,” in reference to the “Tents Holocaust” in which dozens of displaced Palestinians were killed yesterday, both dead and wounded. .
“The information coming from Rafah about further attacks on families seeking shelter is horrific,” UNRWA wrote on the X platform.
She added, “There are reports of a large number of casualties, including children and women, among the dead. Gaza is hell on earth. The photos taken last night are further testimony to that.”
The agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, also said that UNRWA is unable to confirm the location of some of its employees in the targeted area and is “deeply concerned” for their safety and the safety of all displaced people.
He confirmed that 192 agency employees were killed in Gaza, which is “unprecedented.”
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Regarding the funding of the UN agency, Lazzarini said that the agency has been financially weakened over the past years, and the matter has worsened with the accusation of some of its employees of participating in the attack of last October 7, noting that 14 donors have resumed their contributions to the agency and that the remaining donor is the United States.
It is noteworthy that yesterday evening, Israeli raids targeted a camp for displaced people near UNRWA warehouses near the Tal al-Sultan area, west of the city of Rafah, which led to the spread of fires over large areas, and the fall of dozens of martyrs and wounded, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
Israel also previously accused UNRWA, which has more than 30,000 employees in the region (Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria), of employing more than 400 of what it describes as “terrorists” in Gaza, including 12 employees it claimed were directly involved. In the attack of last October 7th.
These accusations prompted a number of donor countries to suspend their funding to the UN agency, although some of these countries returned to resume their funding.