Majority of UNWRA casualties killed while they were off duty

ALL but two of the 152 UN workers killed in Gaza were “off duty” when they died, according to new data that casts light on the situation inside the strip in the first weeks of the war.

Nearly half of all the UN’s casualties came in the three weeks between the Oct 7 Hamas massacre and Israel’s ground invasion.

The findings come as UNRWA has been rocked by the suspension of much of its international funding following allegations some of its members took part in the Oct 7 attacks, with Israelis long complaining that the organisation had been infiltrated by the terror group.

More UN aid workers have been killed in Gaza than in any other conflict in the organisation’s history, and the death toll has led to accusations that Israel is deliberately targeting it, which it denies.

The casualty data shared with Telegraph by the UNRWA gives the most complete picture so far of the situation inside the coastal enclave in the weeks after Oct 7, as the aid agency scrambled to address a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

But questions remain over the circumstances surrounding the deaths of so many UNRWA workers. Just two staff members were “on duty” at the time of their deaths – on Dec 5 and Dec 20, respectively. One of the workers was killed in an air strike on a UN facility, according to the data. The remaining 148 workers died while “off duty,” including at least 26 who died in the presence of family members.

A surprising finding was that men account for nearly two-thirds (93) of the total deaths. This is surprising as women make up 59 per cent of the UN’s 13,000-strong workforce in Gaza.

In addition, casualties were evenly spread between the north of Gaza and “safer” south, while the death rate for UN staff is out of sync with the reported civilian rate over the same period.

The analysis also shows that the three weeks following the Oct 7 attacks were by far the most dangerous for UNRWA workers, with 73 killed by air strikes. However, after the land invasion started two days later, the data shows deaths among UNRWA workers dropped, while deaths among the broader civilian population remained the same.

Maj Gen Charlie Herbert, a former British army officer and an expert on urban warfare, told The Telegraph that “the apparently high proportion of UNRWA staff killed by the IDF in the first months of the war warrants further investigation”. He said: “At this stage it would be too speculative to draw any conclusions from the data, or to infer any deliberate targeting of UNRWA.”

UNRWA offered its own explanation for the higher casualty rate among its workers in this conflict. Every Gaza citizen has an ID number held on a database which both Palestinian and Israeli officials can access. This ID code is also linked to an individual’s residence.

“Israel knows where everyone lives in Gaza and they know their names,” said an UNRWA official. Ahead of a planned IDF strike on a building, “there would have been an understanding that a UN staff member lived in that property and could be at risk”.

In previous conflicts in Gaza, the buildings where local UNRWA staff lived were “tapped on the roof ” with inert shells to warn of incoming strikes in the area. In this war, warnings have been given to international employees living in compounds, but not to local workers at their homes. This change in policy likely explains why the vast majority of UN staff have died “off duty”.