DEIR AL-BALAH: The United Nations said Monday it will "reduce its footprint" in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli tank strike hit one of its compounds last week, killing one staffer from Bulgaria and wounding five other employees.
The world body will temporarily remove about a third of its approximately 100 international staffers working in Gaza, UN Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.
He pointed to the increased danger after Israel relaunched its military campaign last week with bombardment that has since killed hundreds of Palestinians. Israel has also cut off all food, medicine, aid and other supplies to Gaza's population for the past three weeks.
Dujarric's statement was the UN's first to point the finger at Israel in the March 19 explosion at the UN guesthouse in central Gaza. He said that "based on the information currently available," the strikes on the site "were caused by an Israeli tank."
The Israeli military repeated its denial that it was responsible for the strike, which took place a day after Israel shattered Gaza's 2-month-old ceasefire with a surprise bombardment across the Gaza Strip.
Dujarric said the UN "has made taken the difficult decision to reduce the Organization's footprint in Gaza, even as humanitarian needs soar."
He said the UN "is not leaving Gaza," pointing out that it still has about 13,000 national staff in Gaza, mainly working for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Medical workers are under fire in Gaza
The UN reduction comes as aid workers and medical staff have come under fire. The International Committee of the Red Cross said its office in the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip was damaged by an explosive projectile Monday.
It said no staff were hurt but the damage has a direct impact on its ability to operate. It did not specify who was behind the explosion.
ICRC also said that on Sunday, contact was lost with emergency medical technicians from the Palestine Red Crescent Society and their whereabouts remain unknown. Last week, humanitarian workers in Gaza were killed and injured, it said.
On Sunday, Israel struck the surgery ward at southern Gaza's biggest hospital, killing two people and wounding others, many of whom were already injured by earlier strikes. One of those killed at Khan Younis' Nasser Hospital was a teenage boy recovering from surgery.
The other was a Hamas official that Israel says was the target of the strike, Ismail Barhoum. Hamas said Barhoum was undergoing treatment at the time. The Israeli military denied that, saying he oversaw Hamas' finances in Gaza, including transferring money to its armed wing, and was working out of the hospital.
The strike last week on the UN compound outside Deir al-Balah killed a 51-year-old staffer, Marin Valev Marinov. He worked with the UN Office for Project Services, which carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.
In the two days before the deadly blast, strikes hit next to and then directly in the compound, UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said earlier. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that the military was aware of the facility's location.
Full impact of UN reduction not immediately known
Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the UN's humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said the UN and its partners have already suspended a number of activities, many in education, protection and water and sanitation services. The reason, she was, was safety concerns and the impact of Israeli evacuation orders.
"A lot things are constrained right now because of the security situation," she told AP before Dujarric's announcement. "The challenges are massive. We have had a lot of our activities affected by the situation and a lot of our partners have had to suspend operations because it is just not safe."
Movement of trucks, including those distributing water, have been affected, she said. Only 29 out of 237 temporary learning spaces have resumed their activities since the ceasefire collapse, she said.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 113,000, according to the Health Ministry.
Nearly 90% of the population of some 2,3 million have been driven from their homes. Israel launched the campaign vowing to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others.