UNRWA denounces the destruction of its main headquarters in Gaza

▲ A young man walks through rubbish as sanitation services have been halted due to Israeli bombardment in Gaza. Pictured yesterday at the Al Mawasi refugee camp in the centre of the strip.Afp Photo

AFP, Xinhua, Prensa Latina and Europa Press

The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, July 16, 2024, p. 23

Gaza. Israel continued its bombings of the Gaza Strip yesterday, while the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) denounced that its main headquarters in the Palestinian enclave had been turned into a battlefield and destroyed.

Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that at least one person was killed and four wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a school where displaced people were sheltering in the al-Rimal district of Gaza City. This is the sixth school bombed in nine days in the Palestinian territory.

Witnesses reported artillery fire in several neighborhoods of Gaza City and in Nuseirat, in which at least 11 Palestinians were killed, officials said.

The Israeli missile attack in Nuseirat targeted a house, destroying it and damaging neighbouring houses, security sources told the Xinhua news agency.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported that a bombing in the Al Mawasi camp, also in the center, left at least five dead, including three children; in the south of the territory, witnesses reported gunfire from helicopters in the surroundings of Rafah and Khan Yunis, and artillery fire in the latter city that left at least four people dead, reported the Qatari media Al Jazeera.

The Israeli army announced that it eliminated the day before a terrorist cell armed with rocket launchers during fighting in Rafah, and others in the centre of the territory.

Gazan health authorities reported that the death toll in the war between Israel and Hamas has risen to 38,664 since the start of the offensive against Gaza following the October 7 attacks on Israeli soil, which left some 1,200 dead and at least 240 kidnapped.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reported that lack of food, shortage of drinking water, health crisis and collapse of the sanitation system are a serious problem in Gaza.

Almost the entire population of Gaza suffers from food insecurity; in addition, Sewage and mountains of garbage have led to sky-high infection ratesWFP said in a statement.

Israel’s ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declares Israeli settlements in the area illegal.

Smotrich assured the media of his commitment to work for the application of de facto sovereignty in the West Bank and stated that No one will move the people of Israel from their land.

Netanyahu, crybaby and coward: opposition leader

Opposition leader Yair Lapid called Netanyahu a crybaby and coward for calling his cabinet to address threats against him and hate speech.

Lapid, in a press conference where he read a letter containing death threats against him and his family, said that when he received it he did not call for any appearance to denounce it. Have you heard about it? Did I give a press conference? Did I call a special two-hour party meeting? Yes, there are threats and incitements. It is a terrible and sad part of the world we live in. Anyone who reaches a high position experiences it.Lapid said.