A food convoy waiting to move into Northern Gaza was hit by Israeli naval gunfire, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees says.
This was reported by Thomas White, the Director of UNRWA Affairs – Gaza.
“Thankfully no one was injured,” he wrote on X, and posted the picture of a loaded truck that was hit by the gunfire.
The attack comes at a time around two million people in Gaza are hungry and desperate for food as Israeli raids targeting Hamas continues aggressively in the Palestinian enclave.
Forty percent of the population are at risk of famine, according to UNRWA.
He stressed the need for more regular supplies, and called for safe and sustainable humanitarian access everywhere including to the North of Gaza.
As the war has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and on the brink of famine, UNRWA, as the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza, has been providing food, shelter and protection, even as its own staff members were being displaced and killed.
But major donors have frozen funding UNRWA after accusations that many of its staff were involved in the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.
The UN had warned last week that aid operations in Gaza are at risk as 16 donor countries have slashed support to the agency.
Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee said last week that this decision will have catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza. No other entity has the capacity to deliver the scale and breadth of assistance that 2.2 million people in the region urgently need.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday appointed an independent panel to conduct an inquiry into the accusations.
The independent Review Group, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, will work with three research organizations from February 14.
It will take place in parallel with?an investigation currently underway by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) into allegations of the involvement of 12 UNRWA personnel in the attacks.
“The accusations come at a time when UNRWA, the largest UN organization in the region, is working under extremely challenging conditions to deliver life-saving assistance to the two million people in the Gaza Strip who depend on it for their survival amidst one of the largest and most complex humanitarian crises in the world,” the Secretary-General said in a statement.
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