The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees has claimed that six of its staff members were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a school being used as a shelter for displaced people in central Gaza. The airstrikes conducted overnight by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the enclave also hit two homes and killed at least 34 people.

Of those deaths,19 were women and children, AP reported according to reporting by RT, and citing hospital officials. “Six colleagues killed today when two airstrikes hit a school and its surroundings in Nuseirat in the middle areas,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), adding that the attack had resulted in the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the “unacceptable” attacks in a post on X, calling for an end to violations of international humanitarian law. But as long as ruling classes exist, there will be violations of natural law, basic human rights, and humanity in general. The UN is just an extension of the violence that has been ravaging this planet.

In response to Guterres, Israel’s ambassador to the UN accused the secretary-general of distorting reality, claiming that it was “unconscionable that the UN continues to condemn Israel in its just war against terrorists, while Hamas continues to use women and children as human shields.”

The IDF has struck several school buildings in recent months, claiming that Palestinian militants were hiding at the locations among displaced civilians. Hamas has repeatedly denied the accusations.

Israel’s military previously said it had conducted a “precise strike” on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives at a command center located within the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in central Gaza. The statement did not elaborate on the exact outcome, but said “numerous steps” had been taken to reduce the risk to civilians. –RT

Over the past 11 months, since the beginning of this war, which was triggered by a Hamas-led incursion on October 7th, nearly 41,100 Palestinians have been killed and more than 95,000 others wounded in airstrikes and the ground offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.