The United Nations said its staff member Waibhav Anil Kale, 46, was killed in Rafah on Monday in an attack on a U.N. vehicle as ceasefire talks face uncertainty.
The U.N. did not specify who was responsible for the attack, which also injured another staffer. The car was marked with a U.N. flag, and Israeli authorities had been informed of its movements, U.N. spokesman Rolando Gomez told reporters Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said earlier that the IDF had not been made aware of the route of the vehicle, adding that the incident was “under review.”
The death of the U.N. employee coincided with the release of a Human Rights Watch report Tuesday which said Israeli forces have conducted at least eight strikes on aid worker convoys and premises since October, even after workers provided Israeli authorities with their coordinates.
Meanwhile, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas are “almost at a stalemate,” adding that Israel’s military operation into Rafah has set back progress.
He warned that the level of destruction in Gaza could spur a “new wave of radicalization” if there are no reconstruction plans for the territory.
Almost 450,000 people have fled Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli evacuation orders earlier this month, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that aids Palestinian refugees.
Satellite imagery showed swelling numbers of people in central Gaza, as fighting and strikes intensified in parts of the north.
The United States does not yet take issue with Israel’s military campaign in Rafah given the current state of the operation, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters Tuesday.
Patel said the U.S. “would take issue with … an operation that is major, that is a direct invasion into Rafah that is targeting and invading into the urban and dense centers.”
Hospitals are facing possible shutdowns as concerns about hunger grow, with the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed to aid for a week, the Gaza Health Ministry and the U.N. humanitarian affairs office warned.
The death toll in Gaza has risen to 35,173, and 79,061 people have been injured in the enclave since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It said the majority of the dead are women and children.
Israel estimates that 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 272 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.
