The United Nations agency in charge of delivering help to Gaza reported on Sunday that 29 of its employees, half of whom were teachers, had been killed in Israel’s offensive against Hamas and that humanitarian goods and gasoline were running dangerously low.
We are heartbroken and distraught. It has been determined that 29 of our colleagues in #Gaza have been slain since October 7,” the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees said on X on Sunday morning.
At least 12 individuals have been murdered and 180 others injured while taking refuge in United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools (UNRWA), the organization that provides these services to Palestinians said.
The organization also warned that it has only three days’ worth of gasoline left, which means it will soon run out of supplies to feed the refugees.
Humanitarian help cannot be provided without fuel, the organization said– more than half a million people in the Gaza Strip rely on the assistance organization, and many fear for their lives if they run out of supplies.
Until the estimated 210 hostages held by the terror group Hamas are released, Israel has consistently stated that it will not allow any gasoline to enter Gaza. However, Israel has indicated that it will permit the delivery of water, food, and medical supplies into Gaza.
After Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, killing over 1,400 people, and Israel responded with a ferocious counterattack, killing over 4,700 Palestinians, an embargo was placed on petroleum imports to the Palestinian territories.
Al Jazeera claimed that on Saturday, 20 trucks delivered food, water, and medicine into Israel via Egypt, and on Sunday, another 17 trucks entered Israel via Egypt.
Doctors told reporter Khan Younis that the aid was intended for hospitals in the Gaza Strip that were in desperate need of medical supplies.
Aid groups in Gaza have criticized the recent shipments, calling them “just a drop in the ocean” compared to what is needed to provide for Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
While assistance organizations work to alleviate suffering, the UNRWA has come under fire from Republican senators in the United States who want to cut off all of the agency’s funding in the United States due to allegations that UNRWA employees incited violence against Jews.
