The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OSHA) said in a statement that the total death toll among UNRWA since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7 rose to 35 dead.
The office expressed in a post on the X platform (formerly Twitter) its regret for this loss, adding, “Words fail us.”
In turn, UNRWA said that these 35 dead “are not just numbers. They are our friends and colleagues. Many of them were teachers in our schools. UNRWA mourns this terrible loss.”
For his part, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post in Arabic on the United Nations news page on the X platform, “35 of our colleagues at UNRWA, relief workers and teachers, have been killed in Gaza since October 7.”
“We mourn their loss, and we stand with our colleagues who are doing everything they can to help those in need,” Guterres added.
In its daily report on the situation in the Gaza Strip, OSHA highlighted the difficulties faced by humanitarian agencies in delivering aid to the residents of the Strip “due to the current hostilities, restrictions on movement, and shortages of electricity, fuel, water, medicines and other basic materials.”
Since Saturday, international aid has begun entering the Gaza Strip, which is small in area and has a total population of 2.4 million people, via Egypt.
On Monday, a third aid convoy entered through Rafah, which is the only one of the Gaza Strip’s crossings not controlled by Israel.
Since Saturday, three aid convoys have crossed into the besieged Strip, including about 50 trucks, at a time when the United Nations indicated that Gazans need 100 trucks per day.
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