Under Fire in Rafah – Israeli Strike Kills, Wounds WHO Workers
“196 humanitarian workers have been killed and we want to know why each one of them was killed.” – Antonio Guterres
A Palestinian driver with the World Health Organization (WHO) was killed and a foreign employee injured in an Israeli attack in Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources told Anadolu news agency on Monday.
A WHO vehicle came under fire from Israeli forces in eastern Rafah, the sources said, adding that the injured foreign employee was rushed to the European Hospital in Khan Younis city in southern Gaza for medical attention.
There was no comment from the Israeli army on the report.
Israeli public broadcaster KAN, however, said the Israeli army launched an investigation into the incident that occurred near the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Last week, Israel seized the Palestinian side of Egypt’s Rafah border crossing and has since been rapidly expanding its ground military operations in some areas of the city.
Nearly 200 Killed
Last month, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for independent investigations into the deaths of all 196 aid workers killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s genocidal war.
“The Israeli government has acknowledged mistakes,” Guterres said. “But the essential problem is not who made the mistakes, it is the military strategy and procedures in place that allow for those mistakes to multiply time and time again.”
“Fixing those failures requires independent investigations and meaningful and measurable changes on the ground,” he said, adding:
“196 humanitarian workers have been killed and we want to know why each one of them was killed.”
Global outrage at the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn Strip escalated on April 1, after three Israeli airstrikes killed seven people working for the U.-based food NGO World Central Kitchen.
Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 35,091 Palestinians have been killed, and 78,827 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(PC, Anadolu)