"This is just another horrendous example of the price that Palestinian civilians are paying (...) men, women and children who are just trying to survive, who are being forced to move in a kind of circle of death in around Gaza, trying to find safety", said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for António Guterres, at a press briefing in New York.
Asked whether António Guterres condemned the attack, which occurred this morning in the Nusseirat region and killed around 40 people, Dujarric replied: "Of course he does."
Dujarric was more restrained when asked by the media whether Israeli forces committed war crimes, indicating that "there will need to be accountability for everything that happened in Gaza".
UNRWA today accused Israel of having attacked "without prior warning" an organization's school in the Gaza Strip, in "another horrible day" with several dozen dead.
"Another horrible day in Gaza. Another UNRWA school turned shelter was attacked, this time in Nusseirat," declared the UN agency's commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, on the social network X.
The Israeli forces did not give any "prior notice, neither to the displaced nor to UNRWA", he added, ensuring that the UN agency transmitted the details of this school to the "Israeli army and other parties to the conflict".
The building, the representative said, housed around 6,000 displaced people at the time of the attack.
"Allegations that armed groups may have been inside the shelter are shocking, but we do not have the capacity to verify them," he said.
The Israeli army confirmed the bombing of the school and argued that it contained "Hamas terrorists", including members of the forces of the Palestinian Islamist group that carried out the attacks on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
"Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes is a flagrant disregard of international humanitarian law. UN personnel, installations and operations must be protected in all circumstances", defended Lazzarini.
"Targeting UN facilities or using them for military purposes cannot become the new norm", the official also stressed.
Since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, "more than 180 UNRWA buildings have been hit and more than 450 displaced people have been killed as a result," according to the UN agency.
The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by an attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil, on October 7, 2023, which caused around 1,200 deaths and left more than two hundred hostages held by the Palestinian group, according to Tel Aviv .
The Israeli offensive that followed in the Gaza Strip caused more than 36,000 deaths and a serious humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave, according to local authorities supervised by Hamas, which has controlled the territory since 2007.
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