Israel’s military admitted on Thursday that its forces had attacked a United Nations guesthouse in Gaza with tank fire last month, killing a staff member.
The attack in the Deir al Balah area on March 19 killed one U.N. staff member, a Bulgarian, and wounded six others. It prompted Secretary General António Guterres to withdraw a third of the U.N.’s international staff from Gaza out of safety concerns, at a time of dire need for the two million Palestinians living in the enclave.
It was the second time in about a week that Israel has admitted that its forces wrongfully opened fire on aid workers in the Gaza Strip, rare acknowledgments in a conflict that the United Nations says has proved deadlier for its workers than any other in its history.
Israel initially denied any involvement in the March 19 attack. Its mission to the U.N. said an initial investigation had “found no connection to the I.D.F.,” using an abbreviation for the Israel Defense Forces, and accused Hamas members of taking shelter at U.N. compounds.
But in a statement on Thursday, the Israeli military issued an apology to the United Nations.
“The I.D.F. regrets this serious incident and continues to conduct thorough review processes to draw operational lessons and evaluate additional measures to prevent such events in the future,” the statement said.
An Israeli investigation found that the U.N. building was attacked “due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a U.N. facility,” according to the statement. It said that further investigations would be conducted in the coming days.
A U.N. spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said the location of the U.N. compound that was attacked — as well as the locations of all U.N. structures in Gaza — was known to the Israeli military.
“This incident and the investigation — there has been more cooperation and transparency on their side than we’ve had on these types of incidents since the beginning of this conflict,” Mr. Dujarric said. But he said it was not enough.
“We need to have accountability not just for this incident,” he said, “but we need to have accountability and transparency for all of the other times we have seen U.N. colleagues killed in Gaza and U.N. infrastructure attacked.”
The United Nations identified the Bulgarian killed in the attack as Marin Valev Marinov, 51. It described him as a seasoned mariner and vessel master who joined the U.N. in 2016 as a maritime inspector working in Yemen for one year before going to Gaza.
At least 285 U.N. staff members have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, which began with the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The United Nations has said that Israel has repeatedly struck its facilities in Gaza, including schools, shelters and marked vehicles.
In late March, Israeli forces opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and fire trucks traveling with their emergency lights on in the Rafah area of southern Gaza. At least one U.N. vehicle marked with the emblem was also targeted. A video obtained by The New York Times of the incident captured almost five minutes of near-continuous gunfire.
The bodies of 15 humanitarian workers — from the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Palestinian Civil Defense and the U.N. — were discovered in a mass grave together with the crushed ambulances, fire trucks and a U.N. vehicle. An autopsy report showed that most of the victims had been killed by multiple gun shots, some to the head and chest.
Israel initially said its forces had opened fire on the ambulances because their lights were off and they were approaching suspiciously. It has also maintained that there were members of Hamas among the convoy, without providing evidence.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said “several professional failures” had led to attack, and it dismissed a deputy commander for the unit responsible for the killings.
The Geneva Conventions, the laws that govern conduct in conflict zones, protect humanitarian workers and medical workers. The U.N.’s chief human rights director has said that Israel’s killing of the medics raises questions about whether its military committed “war crimes.”
Mr. Dujarric said on Wednesday that once again, the U.N. was calling for all parties in the war “to fully comply with international humanitarian law — and that includes for us the protection, obviously, of civilians, but also the protection of U.N. and humanitarian staff.”
