UN convoy in Gaza attacked

A convoy carrying the director of the United Nations refugee agency was fired on as it returned to Gaza City on Friday, but there were no casualties, according to security sources and witnesses.

“Eleven bullets hit his armoured car. We don’t know who did it yet. We are investigating,” a security source said.

The attack on the convoy happened as John Ging, the Gaza director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), was travelling from the Erez border crossing to Gaza City.

Violence has escalated in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas party came to power a year ago in Palestinian elections.

Such a direct and bold gun attack against foreigners in the Gaza Strip is rare, although around 20 foreign journalists and aid workers have been kidnapped and released unharmed in the past year.

The latest Westerner to have been kidnapped, journalist Alan Johnston, has not been seen since he left the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) bureau in Gaza City on Monday afternoon.

UNRWA is the largest UN agency with more than 25,000 employees, and was established in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war to provide relief for 700,000 Palestinian refugees affected by the war.

Today the agency provides education, health, relief and social services to more than 4.3 million registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In the Gaza Strip alone, UNRWA cares for nearly one million refugees.