U.N. staff member killed in attack on car marked with U.N. flag in Rafah

A U.N. staff member employed by the U.N. Department of Safety and Security was killed while traveling in a U.N. vehicle from Rafah to the European Hospital in the southwest corner of Khan Younis, according to a statement Monday by Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the secretary general. Another U.N. staffer was injured in the attack.

Haq confirmed that the staff member was the first international U.N. casualty since the beginning of the conflict on Oct 7. The name and nationality of the staff member have not been released. The United Nations did not say who they believed was responsible for the attack.

Video footage captured at the emergency department of the European Hospital, one of southern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, showed the aftermath of the attack Monday. Bullet holes are visible in the rear windows of a white van with U.N. lettering stamped across the trunk and front doors of the vehicle - and a U.N. flag staked above the gas hub.

Haq confirmed that the vehicle was part of a larger convoy at the time of the attack, but did not immediately respond to comment on whether this convoy had been deconflicted with Israeli authorities before departure. Avi Hyman, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said in a news briefing Monday that 87% of all U.N. coordination requests for aid distribution had been approved. But travel approvals do not always guarantee safe passage for aid personnel.

Since Oct. 7, 191 U.N. workers have been killed in Gaza - including the worker killed Monday - according to Olga Cherevno, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Israel-Gaza war has become the most deadly conflict for U.N. workers since the agency began monitoring staff casualties.

Noting the war’s heavy toll on both civilians and humanitarian workers, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for the release of all hostages.”

The death of the U.N. worker comes days after the Biden administration released a 46-page unclassified report stating that it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had violated international law using U.S. weapons in its military campaign in Gaza, and that Israeli “action or inaction” had stymied the flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave.

“There is no safe place in Gaza even if you’re an aid worker who has the added benefit of a deconfliction system,” said Anastasia Moran, associate director for U.S. advocacy at the International Rescue Committee, in a briefing Monday. “The deconfliction system that has been used for six months has failed to protect the humanitarian community.”