UN Reports Israel Attacks Training Center in Gaza's Khan Younis; Israel Denies Responsibility

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The United Nations said on Wednesday that Israeli tanks struck a huge UN compound in Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians, causing mass casualties, but Israel denied its forces were responsible and suggested Hamas may have launched the shelling.

The attack, which the UN said hit a vocational training center housing 30,000 displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza's main city, prompted rare outright condemnation from the United States

"Mass casualties have taken place, some buildings are ablaze and there are reports of deaths. Many people are trying to flee the scene, but unable to do so," UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian Territory James McGoldrick said.

Thomas White, director of Gaza affairs for the UN agency UNRWA, said two tank rounds hit one of the center's buildings where some 800 displaced people were sheltering. At least nine people were killed and 75 wounded. The agency's head Philippe Lazzarini said the death toll was probably higher.

"The compound is a clearly marked UN facility and its coordinates were shared with Israeli Authorities as we do for all our facilities. Once again a blatant disregard of basic rules of war," Lazzarini said.

In Washington, US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said: "We deplore today's attack on the U.N.'s Khan Younis training center."

"Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of U.N. facilities must be respected, and humanitarian workers must be protected so that they can continue providing civilians with the life-saving humanitarian assistance that they need," Patel said.

Hours after the attack as night fell, UN staff were still unable to reach the area, and all communications were shut down.

Israeli forces have launched their biggest ground offensive in at least a month, encircling Khan Younis where hundreds of thousands of people who fled fighting elsewhere in Gaza are staying.

Residents said that Israeli announcements warning them to leave the area came only after the operation was under way and the main road out already shut.

The bulk of the 2.3 million-strong population of Gaza is now penned into Khan Younis and the towns just north and south of it. Palestinian officials say the Israelis have cut off and besieged the city's main hospitals, making it impossible for rescuers to reach many of the wounded and the dead.

Palestinian health officials said at least 25,700 people had been killed in Gaza, including 210 in the previous 24 hours. Israel launched its assault in the enclave after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.

In Rafah, a small town just south of Khan Younis on the Egyptian border, an air strike hit a mosque, and residents were gathering scattered pages of holy books from among the pulverized ruins.

Several men hoisted up a concrete block and pulled away rubble, revealing the legs of a dead man in jeans. When the body was finally pulled out, they carried it on a blanket under a stretcher, chanting religious slogans.

Several bodies were later laid in plastic body bags at a morgue, where relatives wailed in sorrow, clutching the corpses.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which runs the Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, said troops had blockaded its staff inside and imposed a curfew in the area, including its local headquarters, where three displaced individuals had been killed.

Israel says Hamas fighters operate in and around hospitals, which hospital staff and Hamas deny.

REUTERS

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