The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) food distribution center in Gaza was hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing five. The bombing of the facility is the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on food distribution in Gaza. The Israeli military operations in Gaza and restrictions on aid entering the Strip have placed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the brink of starvation.
Witnesses, Gazan health officials, and the UN reported that Israel attacked the UNRWA warehouse in Rafah on Wednesday, killing five people, including one UNRWA worker. Officials reported that scores were injured in the attack without providing a number. The Israeli onslaught in Gaza has had a massive impact on aid workers.
One Palestinian in Rafah said the attack was particularly concerning because UNRWA sites are generally considered safer. “It’s a UNRWA center, expected to be secure,” one resident said. Over the past five months, 165 UNRWA workers have been killed, and over 150 of the agency’s buildings in Gaza have been hit.
The attack on the food distribution center comes as famine is taking hold in Gaza. Over two dozen people, mostly children, have starved to death in recent weeks. Israel has significantly reduced aid transfers into Gaza since hostilities flared last October.
What little aid makes it into the Strip has been, at times, attacked by Israeli forces. Earlier this month, Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd that attempted to take food from a convoy of aid trucks, killing over 100 people.
According to the Tel Aviv-based +972 Magazine, Israeli forces regularly hit “power targets,” such as “public buildings,” “universities, banks, and government offices” to “exert ‘civil pressure’ on Hamas.” The practice is a form of collective punishment, a war crime.
While numerous Israeli officials have publicly stated they intend to destroy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the Strip, the White House has largely refused to condemn Israel’s war crimes or limit US military support to Tel Aviv.
This article was originally featured at Antiwar.com and is republished with permission.
