——— Israeli air strike target UNRWA-run aid centre in Rafah
——— Tel Aviv uses aid centres as death traps
——— No evidence from Israel to back UNRWA accusations, says EU humanitarian Chief
——— US Senator says Israel needs “significant course corrections” for peace
GAZA: Israeli forces have shot dead at least six Palestinians and wounded 83 in Gaza City as they were waiting for food and humanitarian supplies at the Kuwait Roundabout, an area where large groups of people gather for arriving aid trucks. The attack on Thursday took place hours after at least five people were killed by an Israeli air strike on a food distribution centre in Rafah, southern Gaza, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is the main humanitarian agency in Gaza.
There has been an uptick in fatal assaults by Israeli troops on crowds of starving civilians lining up for aid in recent weeks. On Monday night, Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the same roundabout.
Reporting from Rafah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said seeking aid has become “really dangerous” in the enclave, adding that “the Kuwaiti Roundabout is now known as a death trap”.
“We heard from a hungry and largely traumatised population stranded in the Gaza Strip asking what is the purpose of getting those aid trucks into Gaza and its northern area if they’re getting shot at,” he said.
“[The Israeli aggression] also endangers the work of aid workers on the ground,” he added.
The Kuwait Roundabout is between the central area of the Gaza Strip and Gaza City, linking northern Gaza to the south.
More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid deliveries in recent weeks, accord-ing to authorities in Gaza.
Sami Abu Salim, an UNRWA employee, told media that he felt frustrated over Wednesday’s attack on the aid centre and warehouse in the eastern part of Rafah as employees have been working around the clock to provide aid to displaced Palestinians.
“This [attacking an aid centre] is forbidden. We are an international institution,” Abu Salim said. “We take all of this [aid] to the elderly and the children.”
The facility in Rafah is one of the last operating food distribution centres in Gaza.
The UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told media on Thursday that the Israeli strike caused mini-mal damage to the supplies, adding that the agency was still distributing aid from the facility after the raid, which killed one of its workers and injured 22 others.
UN facilities must be protected at all times as mandated by international law, Touma stressed.
“Too many times in this war have our facilities and personnel become a target,” she added. At least 165 staff of the UNRWA have been killed in Gaza since October 7 and more than 150 facilities hit, ac-cording to the agency, which has called for an independent inquiry into the repeated Israeli attacks.
Touma said the UNRWA shares the coordinates of its facilities and activities every day with all warring parties, including Israel, and that the location of the Rafah warehouse had been included in a list shared a day before it was attacked. –Agencies
