U.N. to reduce staff in Gaza, blames Israel for strike that killed its employee

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — The United Nations said Monday that it will “reduce its footprint” in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli tank strike hit one of its compounds last week, killing one staffer and wounding five others.

Israel has denied it was behind the explosion Wednesday at the U.N. guesthouse in central Gaza. Stéphane Dujarric a spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, said in a statement Monday that “based on the information currently available,” the strikes on the site “were caused by an Israeli tank.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Dujarric said the U.N. has made “the difficult decision to reduce the Organization’s footprint in Gaza, even as humanitarian needs soar.”

He said the world body was cutting back about a third of its approximately 100 international staffers in Gaza. He said the U.N. “is not leaving Gaza,” pointing out that it still has about 13,000 national staff in Gaza, mainly working for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

The move comes as Israel has cut off all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s population of about 2 million people for more than three weeks. Last week, it relaunched its military campaign in Gaza, with bombardments that have since killed hundreds of Palestinians, breaking a ceasefire in place since mid-January.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas to force the militant group to accept new terms for the ceasefire and release more hostages.

Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N.’s humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said the U.N. and its partners have already suspended a number of activities, many in education, protection and water and sanitation services. The move, she said, was based on safety concerns and the effect of Israeli evacuation orders.

“A lot of things are constrained right now because of the security situation,” she told the Associated Press
before Dujarric’s announcement. “The challenges are massive. We have had a lot of our activities affected by the situation and a lot of our partners have had to suspend operations because it is just not safe.”

Movement of trucks, including those distributing water, have been affected, she said. Only 29 out of 237 temporary learning spaces have resumed their activities since the ceasefire collapsed, she said.

The United Nations previously didn’t say who was behind the strike on its compound. The Bulgarian staffer who was killed, Marin Valev Marinov, 51, was a member of the U.N. Office for Project Services, which carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.

A blast occurred near the compound and it was hit in the days before the deadly strike, UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said earlier. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that the military was aware of the facility’s location.

Shurafa, Lederer and Keath write for the Associated Press. Lederer reported from the United Nations, Keath from Cairo. AP correspondent Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.