Israel rejects UN’s repeated accusation of shelling its compound in Gaza

The Foreign Ministry charged that “nothing stands in the way of the UN secretary-general in another attempt to smear Israel.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel rejected a new United Nations accusation that the IDF had shelled one of its compounds last week in the Gaza Strip that resulted in the death of one staffer and the wounding of six others.

In a “Note to Correspondents,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric wrote on Monday, “Based on the information currently available, the strikes hitting a UN compound in Deir Al Balah on 19 March were caused by an Israeli tank.

“The strikes claimed the life of a UN colleague from Bulgaria and left six others – from France, Moldova, North Macedonia, Palestine and the United Kingdom – with severe injuries, some of them life-altering.”

Noting that the location of the compound “was well known to the parties to the conflict,” the statement went on to condemn the strikes and demand a “thorough and independent investigation” of the incident because international law “protect[s] the absolute inviolability of UN premises.”

The IDF had already denied it had anything to do with the incident on the day it occurred, posting to X that “contrary to reports, the IDF did not strike a U.N. compound in Deir el Balah.”

The army reiterated its rejection of the charge after Dujarric’s statement was published, telling Fox News Digital Monday that it was “absolutely not accurate.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein also slammed the international body.

“The initial examination found no connection to IDF activity whatsoever,” he noted in a press release. “The UN inquiry team itself hasn’t even arrived at the scene. Yet the UN is quick to publish another baseless slander against Israel.”

“No standards, no professionalism — nothing stands in the way of the UN Secretary-General in another attempt to smear Israel,” he charged.

While calling out Israel for its “devastating strikes on Gaza” and cutting off the entry of humanitarian aid, the statement stood out in that it did not mention Hamas by name at all. Nor did it refer to its unceasing attempts to continue its terror activity against the IDF and the Jewish state, which is what prompted the IDF’s resumption last week of military operations against the terrorist organization.

Joe Truzman, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who is an expert on Palestinian terrorism, told Fox that this gives the “impression… that the United Nations has deliberately avoided criticizing Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza for fear of creating friction with the armed groups.”

“This failed strategy has only emboldened Hamas and its allies, allowing them to exploit UNRWA facilities in Gaza with impunity,” he continued, noting that the agency had also employed many Hamas terrorists, some of whom participated in the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, when 1,200 people were slaughtered and 251 taken hostage.

Dujarric told the press in a briefing later Monday that as a result of the danger to its personnel in Gaza, the UN “is reducing the number of international staff members by about one third this week” as “a temporary measure,” while emphasizing that the body would not leave as a whole because it “remains committed to continuing to provide aid that civilians depend on for their survival and protection.”

When asked if the UN thought its location had been intentionally targeted, he repeated the earlier charge despite Jerusalem’s denial, saying, “The point is that the Israelis knew exactly where this UN facility was, and it was hit by a shell from one of their tanks.”