More than a dozen aid workers killed or missing in Gaza, multiple groups say, as Israeli blockade continues

CNN — 

More than a dozen aid workers have been killed or gone missing in Gaza over the past few days, several groups say, as Israel ramps up its renewed military assault on the Palestinian enclave following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Thursday eight of its staff had been killed in Gaza over the past week, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society said nine of its emergency medical technicians have been missing since Sunday following an incident in which Israeli forces fired on ambulances and fire trucks in the southern Gaza governorate of Rafah.

In a separate incident, Israeli strikes near a community kitchen in the Gaza strip on Thursday killed a World Central Kitchen volunteer and injured six others “as meals were being distributed,” according to the US-based non-profit.

CNN has reached out to Israeli authorities for comment on the UNRWA and World Central Kitchen deaths. The Israeli military has claimed that it fired on the ambulances and fire trucks in Rafah because they were being used as cover by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants.

The attacks come after Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, breaking a temporary ceasefire that had been in place since January. Israeli attacks have since killed at least 855 people and injured 1,869, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the strip.

The news also follows Israel’s decision before the ceasefire collapsed to block humanitarian aid from entering the enclave, in what it described as a move to pressure Hamas into accepting new terms for an extension of the ceasefire rather than proceed with phase two of the truce.

Noting the deaths of the UNRWA staff, the agency’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini called Thursday for the ceasefire to resume and for Israel to lift its blockade on aid.

“No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza for more than three weeks now,” Lazzarini said, noting that before the ceasefire collapsed between 500 and 600 aid trucks had been entering the strip on a daily basis.

“This is longest that Gaza has been without any supplies since the war began,” Lazzarini said.

Israel launched its war in Gaza following Hamas’ October 2023 attack in which militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.

With the return to hostilities, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are once again at risk of “severe hunger and malnutrition,” the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a statement on Thursday, stressing that its food stocks are enough to support its operations for a maximum of two weeks.

UNRWA’s Lazzarini said parents are unable to find food for their children, hunger is increasing and the risk of disease is spreading.

“The siege must be lifted and crossings must re-open for a standard flow of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies,” Lazzarini said.

About 400 aid workers, including teachers, doctors and nurses, have been killed in Israeli attacks in the enclave since October 7, 2023, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update earlier this week.

The death toll includes 289 UN staff and 34 Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) workers as well as 76 from other NGOs.