At least two projectiles hit a training center of the UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza this Wednesday, January 24, denounced the director of the entity, Thomas White. The official confirmed the death of at least nine people, after the missiles caused a fire in the place that housed thousands of displaced Gazans. The event occurs at a time when the Israeli Army intensifies its attacks against what it considers targets of the Hamas group and the Netanyahu Government rules out a new truce with the Islamist movement.
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At least nine dead and 75 injured is the number of victims confirmed so far by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), after two missiles hit one of its training centers in Gaza, which housed around 800 displaced people.
The “buildings are on fire and there are mass casualties. Safe access to and from the center has been denied for two days. “People are trapped,” said the director of UNRWA, through his social networks.
🚨 BREAKING: AIRSTRIKE TARGETING UNRWA CENTER IN KHAN YOUNIS.
An IOF airstrike targeted a UNRWA center in Khan Younis housing thousands of displaced people, leading to several casualties and injuries.
Bombing by warplanes and artillery shelling has continued for hours in the… pic.twitter.com/HEjEBA3TBb
—CensoredVoice. (@CensoredNws) January 24, 2024
The impact of the missiles that caused a fire occurred in the midst of intense fighting around the place, said the commissioner general of the Agency that belongs to the United Nations, Phillippe Lazzarini.
When questioned about this fact, the Israeli Army responded that the surrounding area was a major base for Hamas militants.
“Dismantling Hamas' military framework in western Khan Yunis is at the heart of the logic behind the operation,” the military institution stated.
Hundreds of patients and doctors trapped in southern Gaza hospitals
Israeli forces also isolated the main hospitals in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, Palestinian officials and UN agencies on the ground said.
Fleeing is not an option, as Doctors Without Borders pointed out this Wednesday, since the south had become the main escape route for thousands of people who were forced to leave the center and south of Gazan territory, where they are not allowed. go out.
Doctors Without Borders added that its staff are trapped inside the Nasser hospital, the largest in the south – with some 850 patients and thousands of displaced people – because the surrounding roads are inaccessible or too dangerous.
That hospital is one of only two in southern Gaza that can still treat critically ill patients, the medical and humanitarian organization said.
Khan Younis |
Israeli military besieges the Crescent Society medical crews inside the Society's building & Amal Hospital. PRCS: “a curfew has been imposed around the building and the hospital.”
Israeli military ordered residents nearby via speakers to flee further south pic.twitter.com/CAYzegWbcd
—Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) January 24, 2024
The Gaza Health Ministry also noted that medical facilities have been isolated.
The situation is repeated in the rest of the hospitals in the center and south. “Staff are terrified, patients and displaced people are now trapped inside the few remaining hospitals in Khan Younis as intense fighting continues,” Lazzarini added.
Israel rules out a new truce with Hamas in Gaza
Although some reports indicated that the two parties were close to agreeing on a new truce, a spokeswoman for Benjamin Netanyahu's government ruled out that possibility.
“There will be no ceasefire. In the past there have been pauses for humanitarian reasons. That agreement was violated by Hamas,” said spokeswoman Ilana Stein.
Several sources interviewed by the Reuters news agency had indicated that the truce would last 30 days and would serve for new exchanges of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
But the official rejected that route and confirmed that her country's troops will not give up on the declared objective of “eliminating” Hamas.
“Israel will not give up on the destruction of Hamas, the return of all hostages and no security threat from Gaza to Israel,” Stein stressed in a briefing.
Meanwhile, in their largest operation in a month, Israeli tanks are passing through Khan Younis, where thousands of Palestinians are taking refuge after being forced to leave the north, the initial focus of the ongoing war.
The military's main target now appears to be the area around the former Khan Younis refugee camp, which includes the Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals, as well as the UNRWA-run training center that was hit on Wednesday.
In fact, soldiers ordered residents to evacuate a swath of the center of the enclave, which includes those facilities, further corralling most of the population.
With Reuters and AP
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