2024-02-02T04:47:37+00:00
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/ Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib announced on Thursday night that she had summoned the Israeli ambassador to Belgium after raids “destroyed” the offices of the Belgian Development Agency in the Gaza Strip.
“The offices of the Belgian Development Agency (Enabel) in Gaza were bombed and destroyed. Targeting civilian buildings is unacceptable. We are summoning the Israeli ambassador to clarify the matter,” the minister wrote on the X platform, saying she was working in coordination with Development Minister Caroline Gennes.
“The agency’s offices in Gaza were completely destroyed yesterday in a bombing,” Enabel director Jan van Wetter said via the X platform.
“All of us at Enabel are shocked. As a government agency working for the public good within the framework of international humanitarian law, we cannot accept this,” Van Wetter wrote, posting two photos, one of the building where the agency’s offices are located before the alleged bombing, and the other of a pile of rubble.
In October, the Israeli army focused its strikes and ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before advancing further south, with fighting currently raging in Khan Yunis, the second city in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
According to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) published on Wednesday, 37,379 buildings – equivalent to 18 percent of the total buildings in the Gaza Strip – were damaged or destroyed as a result of the Israeli military operation in November.
Since then, satellite data indicates that the destruction has more than doubled, according to Rami Al-Azzeh, a co-author of the report, who told AFP: “The new data indicates that 50 percent of buildings in Gaza are damaged or destroyed.”
The Agency’s offices are located in a building on Victor Hugo Street in the central Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City.
The Israeli embassy in Belgium did not immediately respond to these statements.