Two killed in strike on UN building in Gaza - UN source

UNITED NATIONS, United States - Two people, including a United Nations employee, were killed in a strike on one of the global body's buildings in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, a UN source told AFP on Wednesday.

 

One of those killed was employed by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the source said. 

 

The head of a United Nations agency said Wednesday he was "shocked and devastated" by the death of a staff member who was killed in a strike on the agency's compound in Gaza.

 

"This was not an accident," Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), said of the incident, which came as Israel launched its most intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip since a January 19 ceasefire. "I'm shocked and devastated by this tragic news," he said.

 

Gaza health ministry says six foreign UN workers 'severely injured' by Israeli strike.

 

Gaza's civil defence agency said Wednesday that 13 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian territory since midnight.

 

Israel "carried out several air strikes... which resulted in the deaths of 13 people and wounded dozens, including women and children, in Khan Yunes and Gaza City", Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency, told AFP.

 

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that massive overnight strikes on Gaza were "only the beginning" and that future negotiations with Hamas "will take place only under fire".

 

The strikes, by far the largest since a truce took effect in January, killed more than 400 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

 

Netanyahu said in a video statement on Tuesday evening "Hamas has already felt the strength of our arm in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you -- and them -- this is only the beginning".

 

Negotiations have stalled over how to proceed with a ceasefire whose first phase has expired, with Israel and Hamas disagreeing on whether to move to a new phase intended to bring the war to an end.

 

The Israeli premier said in his address that "from now on, negotiations will take place only under fire," before adding: "Military pressure is essential for the release of additional hostages".

 

Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the return of all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack that sparked the war.