More than 40 million metric tons of war debris lie in the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations. The ruins piling up inside UNRWA's main headquarters complex in the enclave have become part of this. On Monday, July 15, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, posted photos on X of the massive destruction of the organization's buildings, describing them as having been transformed into a "battlefield" in "flagrant disregard of international humanitarian law."

The bombardments carried out by Israel since the Hamas attack in October 2023 have redoubled in intensity since the beginning of the month. In a statement issued on Friday, July 12, the Israeli army said it had launched a "counter-terrorism operation" a few days earlier in the center of Gaza City, where the UNRWA headquarters are located. It claimed that its units had confronted Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters entrenched in the buildings, and that they had discovered large quantities of weapons and assembly workshops.

The UNRWA is unable to say today whether Hamas or other Palestinian groups have taken advantage of the chaos to move into its premises. The organization evacuated on October 12, 2023 after a night of intense bombardment in the area. At the time, the Israeli army had ordered the evacuation of the city, home to more than 700,000 people before the conflict.

Le Monde's video service analyzed images supplied by the Israeli army and a local media outlet, as well as satellite images, concluding that the massive destruction in the UNRWA compound occurred between July 8 and 12. The documents examined do not, on their own, make it possible to determine whether fighting also took place during this period.

According to Lex Takkenberg, adviser to the Jordanian NGO Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development and a former UNRWA executive who was stationed in Gaza, the buildings housing the vocational training center were among those most destroyed. The headquarters building "looks damaged, but still standing." On July 8, the Israeli army ordered further evacuations from Gaza City, including from the training center where around 10 families had taken refuge. On the same day, according to UNRWA, 12 displaced persons and three guards were injured in an air strike targeting the guard room.

In the Gaza Strip, the immunity that UNRWA facilities are supposed to have has been violated several times since the start of the conflict, "by all the warring parties," according to the agency's Communications Director Juliette Touma, who is calling for an investigation.

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