A UN convoy was held at gunpoint by the Israeli army for several hours on Tuesday, as the organization protested the treatment of 12 of its employees who had gone to vaccinate Gazan children.
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The convoy of several UN agencies, including the agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) “ was arrested by Israeli forces ” at the al-Rachid checkpoint while he had all the necessary authorizations, assured Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the secretary general of theUN.
For no reason, they were blocked at an Israeli checkpoint and the situation escalated, reports our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten. Shots were even fired as the trucks headed north of Gaza to vaccinate Gazan children against polio. This was an emergency since the disease, which had disappeared from the Palestinian territory, had resurfaced in the refugee camps.
But instead the UN men were arrested and Israeli soldiers asked to take two Palestinian staff members from the 12-person team for questioning. This is against UN regulations. They were held for nearly seven hours at an Israeli army checkpoint, despite the fact that the convoy’s route had been coordinated in advance with the Israeli armed forces’ current system. There was a face-off during which warning shots were fired by Israeli soldiers. And there was at one point an effort with Israeli reinforced vehicles to try to block the movements of the UN cars. “, according to the organization’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
“Unacceptable dangers and obstacles »
To unblock the situation, the officials exceptionally allowed the soldiers to question their colleagues under their control. But the UN denounces the increasingly frequent lack of coordination between the Israeli command and its units on the ground.
” The conduct of Israeli forces on the ground puts the lives of our personnel at risk “, said the spokesman, deploring an event that is “ the latest example of unacceptable dangers and obstacles ” to humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territory.
In late August, a World Food Programme vehicle was shot several times at another Israeli army checkpoint in Gaza. And this was not the first time that UN vehicles had been hit by gunfire since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7.