The confidential report is the first to detail the toll faced by the families of UN workers in Gaza

RYAN GRIM, DROP SITE, JUL 24, 2024

Israel’s assault on Gaza had killed at least 172 dependents of United Nations staff by the end of June, according to a confidential UN report obtained by Drop Site, in addition to 195 staff members.

The previously unreported data reflects the extraordinary toll not just for employees of the United Nations but for their families, and emerges as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address a joint session of Congress Wednesday. 

Netanyahu, the subject of a potential arrest warrant from the U.N.’s International Criminal Court, will meet while in the United States with outgoing President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and presidential hopeful/Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris, while meeting with Netanyahu privately, has declined to appear behind him during his address. At least 21 lawmakers, including some establishment figures such as Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., will be boycotting Netanyahu’s address.

The data put together by the U.N.’s Crisis Coordination Centre also includes a breakdown by agency, finding five U.N. Development Program dependents, four UNICEF dependents, three World Food Program family members, and two World Health Organization dependents have been killed. 158 dependents of staff for UNRWA, or the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, have been killed. 

In May, the U.N. reported that 188 staff members of UNRWA had been killed by then, but has not previously disclosed the extent of the familial casualties. 

Among staff, the killings are similarly concentrated among UNRWA employees. The report was circulated internally July 1, before the U.N.’s International Court of Justice announced its landmark finding that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal and must be ended. The UN did not respond to a request for comment.

Israeli attacks on U.N. staff have continued since. This weekend, a U.N. spokesperson said that a U.N. convoy was fired on by Israeli forces despite tight coordination ahead of time. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Monday the U.S. had requested information from Israel about its latest strike on the convoy, adding that he appreciated the “enormous sacrifice and enormous risk humanitarian workers put themselves under.” Miller said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had met Monday with a top U.N. official and discussed the issue. Asked if the U.S. was prepared to dole out consequences if Israel continued killing aid workers, he said, “I don’t have anything to read out on that at this time.”

The UN report is the latest in a series of alarming findings regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza. Most recently, the UN Special Rapporteur reported “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel’s actions in Gaza may constitute genocide, a finding echoing International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled in January that “the Court considers that the plausible rights in question in these proceedings, namely the right of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III of the Genocide Convention and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the Convention, are of such a nature that prejudice to them is capable of causing irreparable harm.”

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However, Israel’s massacre in Gaza continues unabated. On July 22, Israel killed 89 people and injured at least 250 in a new assault on Khan Younis after ordering 400,000 people to leave their homes and refugee camps in the rapidly shrinking “safe zones” of Gaza, 83 percent of which is now a “no-go zone.” Bombings in the no-go zone have also not stopped; in the past 12 hours, dozens have been killed in Al Sabra, Jabalia, and Gaza City neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said in an interview with Breaking Points that Michigan voters supportive of Palestinian rights, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, were holding out hope that a Harris administration would be less ideologically rigid in its support for Israel’s war. “The door is open,” he said, adding that representatives of the Harris team had already begun reaching out to local Muslim leaders to set up meetings. 

Republican candidate Trump, meanwhile, has left little hope there would be a significant departure from Biden’s policy were he to be elected. Basem Naim, a member of the political bureau of Hamas in Gaza, told Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill that Trump’s recent belligerence was a reminder that there is little difference between the two parties on the question of Israel and Palestine. 

“Sad to hear such statements, because it reflects that the complicit American policies towards the conflict here is a non-partisan issue and regardless who will win the election the blind and disgraceful support of USA to Israel will continue,” Naim said in a comment issued following Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention, before Biden dropped out. “But we can very confident[ly] reassure Mr. Trump, that the Democrats have already done the maximum to help their puppet in the region and they both have failed to achieve any of their goals, therefore use your time to put a new strategy to rescue your puppet from its ominous demise, a new strategy based on justice and genuine rights of all people to freedom, dignity, and self determination.”

Robust protests inside the Cannon House Office Building were held on Tuesday by Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, with more planned for Wednesday to coincide with Netanyahu’s speech.