A UNITED Nations (UN) worker has been killed in Gaza after the organisation said one of its compounds had been targeted.
The UN said that an international employee was killed and five others injured after a strike hit a UN guesthouse in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, on Wednesday.
Gaza's health ministry blamed an Israeli strike and said five critically injured foreign workers had arrived in hospital.
Meanwhile, Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the UN Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike but said the explosive ordnance was “dropped or fired”, and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity.
He did not provide the nationalities of those killed and wounded. The UN body, known as UNOPS, carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.
Israel's military denied striking the UN compound, while Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday and struck it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, when the employee was killed.
He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that it was aware of the facility’s location.
“Israel knew this was a UN premise, that people were living, staying and working there,” he said.
After the strike on Wednesday, the wounded were rushed to Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah. One man was carried inside on a blanket held up by medical workers. Another lay on a hospital bed, his knee bandaged. A blue protective vest emblazoned with “UN” rested on a nearby bed.
It comes after Israel said it was resuming fighting in Gaza following a two-month ceasefire - launching a wave of strikes that killed more than 400 people, most of whom were women and children.
On Tuesday, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had "resumed combat in full force".
In a television statement, Netanyahu said Tuesday's bombardment was “only the beginning” and that all further ceasefire negotiations will take place “under fire”.
Separately, at least 13 people were killed in air strikes across Gaza overnight, after Israel said it was resuming fighting "in full force" in the Palestinian territory.
Two civilians were killed and five others injured when an Israeli drone hit a tent near the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reports, citing Red Crescent medics.
Israel's army said it had targeted what it called a Hamas military site, from where the group was preparing to fire into Israel. Vessels controlled by Hamas were also hit, the army said.
Tom Fletcher, the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said of Tuesday's strikes that "the intensity of the killings is now off the scale".
Wafa said a woman and child were killed in an air strike north of Khan Younis overnight into Wednesday, while four others were killed in a strike in Gaza City.
Gaza's health ministry said at least 436 people, including 183 children and 94 women, have been killed since Israel launched the strikes early on Tuesday. It said another 678 people have been injured.
On Wednesday afternoon, Israel's defence minister Israel Katz said his country will start urging Palestinians to evacuate from combat zones in Gaza soon, warning that Israel is preparing to step up its new offensive.
In a statement, Katz warned that if hostages held in Gaza by Hamas are not freed, “Israel will act with an intensity that you have not seen”.
Shortly after that announcement, the Israeli military said it had launched a "limited ground operation" in northern Gaza to retake part of a key corridor.
