The United States said Thursday it is continuing to press Israel to protect humanitarian sites in Gaza, a day after an Israeli airstrike hit a United Nations school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing 18 people there, including six U.N. workers.
“We need to see humanitarian sites protected, and that's something that we continue to raise with Israel,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference in Warsaw.
“At the same time, we continue to see Hamas hiding in, taking over and otherwise using these sites from which to conduct its operations and to pose an ongoing threat, and that, of course, has to stop, because those actions are endangering civilians,” the top U.S. diplomat said.
He said the attack “also underscores, once again, the urgency of reaching a cease-fire” to halt the Israeli war with Hamas militants, which is now in its 12th month.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed the same thoughts, saying through a spokesperson, “The continued lack of effective protection for civilians in Gaza is unconscionable. Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on must be protected and the essential needs of civilians met.”
He called on the warring parties to stop using schools, shelters, or the areas around them for military purposes. He said Israel and Hamas have the obligation to comply with international humanitarian laws.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Thursday it evacuated nearly 100 people from the Gaza Strip to the United Arab Emirates, and it called for a regular, sustained system of medical transfers to help thousands of people in need of care.
"Gaza needs medical corridors,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told journalists. “We need a better organized and sustained system.”
Peeperkorn said 10,000 people in Gaza are awaiting a medical transfer.
WHO also released a report Thursday saying that as of late July, one-fourth of those injured in the Gaza war “are estimated to have life-changing injuries that require rehabilitation services now and for years to come.”
Severe limb injuries were the top need for rehabilitation, while there have also been large increases in the number of spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries and major burns, WHO said. The injured include “many thousands of women and children.”
WHO also highlighted increased challenges in providing the necessary care due to insecurity, a lack of supplies, attacks and evacuation orders that leave many medical facilities inoperable.
Killing of activist
Turkey said Thursday it is conducting its own investigation into Israel’s killing of a Turkish-American activist in the occupied West Bank.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Turkey will present its findings to a U.N. court, and that it is calling on the U.N. to conduct its own probe.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head during a pro-Palestinian demonstration last week. Israel’s military said its soldiers likely shot her “indirectly and unintentionally.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said there must be “full accountability” and that Israel “must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
Tunc said Eygi’s body was expected to arrive in Turkey on Friday for burial in the town of Didim.
The Israel-Hamas war started with the militants’ shock attack on southern Israel last October that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel’s subsequent counteroffensive has killed more than 41,100 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of militants.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
