UN to reduce staff in Gaza, blames Israel for strike that killed its employee

The United Nations said on Monday it will "reduce its footprint” in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli tank strike hit one of its compounds last week, killing one staffer and wounding five others.

Israel has denied it was behind the March 19 explosion at the UN guesthouse in central Gaza.

In a statement on Monday, UN Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that "based on the information currently available,” the strikes on the site "were caused by an Israeli tank.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Dujarric said the UN "has made taken the difficult decision to reduce the Organisation’s footprint in Gaza, even as humanitarian needs soar.”

He said the world body was cutting back about a third of its approximately 100 international staffers in Gaza. He said the UN "is not leaving Gaza,” pointing out that it still has about 13,000 national staff in Gaza, mainly working for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The move comes as Israel has cut off all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s around 2 million people for more than three weeks. Last week, it relaunched its military campaign in Gaza, with bombardments that have since killed hundreds of Palestinians, breaking a ceasefire in place since mid-January.

Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said the UN and its partners have already suspended a number of activities, many in education, protection and water and sanitation services. The reason, she was, was safety concerns and the impact of Israeli evacuation orders.

"A lot things are constrained right now because of the security situation,” she told AP before Dujarric’s announcement. "The challenges are massive. We have had a lot of our activities affected by the situation and a lot of our partners have had to suspend operations because it is just not safe.”

Movement of trucks, including those distributing water, have been affected, she said. Only 29 out of 237 temporary learning spaces have resumed their activities since the ceasefire collapse, she said.

The United Nations previously didn't say who was behind the strike on its compound. The Bulgarian staffer who was killed, Marin Valev Marinov, 51, was a member of the UN Office for Project Services, which carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.

A strike exploded near the compound, then hit it directly in the days before the deadly strike, UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said earlier. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that the military was aware of the facility’s location.

Associated Press