WHO says Israeli forces hit its staff residence and main warehouse in Gaza

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday, compromising its operations in Gaza.

The WHO said its staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children.
...
“Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward al-Mawasi amid active conflict. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint,” the WHO said.

Two WHO staff and two family members were detained, it said in a post on X. It said three were later released, while one staff member remained in detention. Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “WHO demands the immediate release of the detained staff and protection of all its staff.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/21/who-says-residence-and-main-warehouse-in-gaza-hit-by-israeli-forces

---

Plus:

Gaza is 'hell on earth' with doctors fainting from hunger, UN warns, as 1,000 estimated to have been killed seeking food

The head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency said on Tuesday that its staff members as well as doctors and humanitarian workers are fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion, Reuters reports.

Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement, shared by his spokesperson at a press briefing in Geneva:

Caretakers, including UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now, doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them, UNRWA staff are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties.
...
In a post on X on Monday, Unrwa said that shortages in the Palestinian territory had caused food prices to increase by 40 times, while the aid stockpiled in its warehouses outside Gaza could feed “the entire population for over three months.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jul/22/israel-gaza-war-latest-live-news-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-687f54bb8f08e43d99bdab25#block-687f54bb8f08e43d99bdab25

[Irish_Dem]

1. The WHO must evacuate women and children out of an active combat zone.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The WHO is an international health organization, and authoritarian armies don't get to order it around

and treat it like criminals. The IDF is preventing food, medicine, water and fuel getting into Gaza, and to pretend that people inside Gaza have freedom of movement and a choice of where to go is to stick your head in the sand and believe what the war criminal Netanyahu tells you.

[Irish_Dem]

3. The WHO is being bombed. They need to get the staff families out now.

[Beastly Boy]

13. It's a war zone. WHO needs not to be ordered to take the obvious precautions.

It would be criminal of them not to do so.

If, on the other hand, their employees decide to remain in a war zone after repeated warnings to evacuate, they are, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the responsibility of Hamas:

ART. 29. — The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected
persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them
by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may
be incurred.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. If that paragraph were relevant, then you would be calling the IDF the agent of Hamas

so I assume you're posting stuff at random.

[Beastly Boy]

16. Your logic is incomprehensible.

How do you propose IDF has a role in the Hamas responsibilities under this article of the Geneva Conventions?

Is Hamas, and not IDF the party in whose hands WHO personnel are? Are you suggesting they are in Israel's hands?

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. " the treatment accorded to them by its agents" - the treatment here is the bombing and arrests

which was done by the IDF. The IDF are the agents; the Party is the Israeli government - or state of Israel, perhaps.

Israel does, by the way, believe they are in Israel's hands; that's why it issues demands on where they should go, orders to the IDF on when they can be shot while queuing for food, and so on. This is why the area is known, with the West Bank, as "the Occupied Territories". Israel is the occupier.

[Beastly Boy]

18. Huh?

Your argument starts with the presumption that Israel is Hamas' agent, which of course is ridiculous.

Your conclusion follows this ridiculous presumption. Take it away, and you have no argument.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Very slowly - for those to whom logic is a new concept

The OP is about "WHO says Israeli forces hit its staff residence and main warehouse in Gaza".

You posted "If, on the other hand, their employees decide to remain in a war zone after repeated warnings to evacuate, they are, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the responsibility of Hamas:"
and then quoted to Geneva Convention
"ART. 29. — The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected
persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them
by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may
be incurred."
So, you wanted to talk about a "responsibility" of a party in a conflict for "its agents" and their treatment of "protected persons". The protected persons here are the WHO staff and families, and the treatment is the bombing and arresting. The agents are the IDF. That much is obvious to everyone, I reckon. But it's also obvious that the IDF are agents of Israel (government or state, if there's a difference).

So I replied "If that paragraph were relevant, then you would be calling the IDF the agent of Hamas". Notice the "if" at the start of that. It's obvious that the IDF is not an agent of Hamas, so I continued " I assume you're posting stuff at random.". Now it seems that you were posting nonsense on purpose, just to manufacture a nonsensical argument, since you've got nothing else.

You appear to be trying to start a clabby conversation, as defined by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd:

A clabby conversation is one struck up by a commissionaire or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitally important to learn the correct use of clixby (q.v.), the response to a clabby gambit, and not to get trapped by a ditherington (q.v.). For instance, if confronted by a clabby gambit such as 'Oh Mr Smith, I didn't know you'd had your leg off', the ditherington response is 'I haven't...' whereas the clixby is 'Good'.

http://meaningofliff.free.fr/definition.php3?word=Clabby&lang=en

[Beastly Boy]

22. Another false presumption

" The protected persons here are the WHO staff and families, and the treatment is the bombing and arresting. The agents are the IDF."

The bolded part is patently false. I dare not speculate on the kind of duplicitous contortions that might bring about such nonsensical statement.

The part of Article 29 you conveniently leave out of your consideration is: "The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them" How can the WHO staff and families possibly be in the hands of IDF, when they are located in an area occupied by Hamas? It is self-evident that the WHO members are in the hands of Hamas, the party to the conflict whose agents are responsible for the treatment accorded to them, which is utter disregard.

Just as it is self-evident that you are in no position to lecture me on logic.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Unbelievable. (nt)

[Beastly Boy]

24. The things you discover when reading the whole thing!

Unbelievable indeed!

[democrank]

4. Is there no way to stop Netanyahu?

The world must just sit back and watch this criminal bomb, maim and kIll?

[Vthestate]

6. good question...no one can deny that this is crazy

[moniss]

11. If a nation or group of nations

had the moral courage to send their military assets to directly attack the IDF it would change in a moment. The IDF has always been far more well armed than various groups who have limited crude rockets, grenades and rifles. The Iranian missiles that did get through the IDF defenses were a wake-up call to a great many citizens of Israel who had grown to think that their "Iron Dome" was omnipotent.

Yes of course the US would have a fit but it would remove the nature of the conflict from being that of a vastly superior force imposing what we see now with little impact to their forces and it would make it one where continuation of their actions against the civilian populations in Gaza and the West Bank would have immediate major losses in personnel and equipment.

If a group of nations indicated to the US that they were resolute on the IDF actions in the Occupied Territories being stopped immediately then I doubt whether the US would want to escalate rather than telling Netanyahu that his killing spree and land grab is over as far as getting US resupply of weapons. Crumb The 1st could be made to understand that the nations involved would seize his business assets in those countries and do so on the basis of his support for War Crimes and for his stated desire to "possess" Gaza for the purposes of luxury development and profits for his businesses and those of his family.

[Ken Dayenu]

12. That sounds like a great way to start WW III

Have fun storming the castle.

[moniss]

19. I don't believe that the US will

do it. The alternative is to just let Netanyahu keep on in Lebanon, Syria and in the Occupied Territories while the world wrings it's hands and issues words. Netanyahu and the radical far right have already set in motion complaining about Jordan not policing their border. The radical right has long had gaining the East Bank of the Jordan River as one of their goals.

It becomes ridiculous for countries and people around the world to complain and bluster about Israeli conduct if they aren't willing to do anything about it beyond strong words. At least have the guts to kick out their ambassador. Maybe even **gasp** take trade sanctions etc. But even before all of this recent activity it has long been very clear that the world at large has been, for many decades, more about lip service regarding the plight of the Palestinians than any real, and I emphasize real, concrete actions to make the Israeli government stop the illegal squatter activity in the West Bank, stop the Israeli government collecting taxes from the West Bank Palestinians and then withholding the transfer of those funds to the PA thereby preventing the PA from using the funds for needed programs and services, stop the IDF from commandeering more and more Palestinian lands in the West Bank under the guise of "needed for military/security operations", make the Israeli government/IDF provide effective prevention/apprehension of Israeli squatter violence against Palestinians, stop the Israeli government/IDF from arbitrarily destroying Palestinian crops, stop the Israeli government/IDF from restricting access by Palestinian farmers to tend their crops, stop the Israeli government/IDF from restricting building permits and infrastructure improvements while facilitating them for the illegal squatters, stop the Israeli government/IDF from attacking schools and permanently stunting the educational advancement of children, stop the Israeli government/IDF from actively targeting for destruction the camps, people and repositories with the most historical ties and records to the land ownership of Palestinians that was taken away under Partition and was guaranteed, by the powers at the UN, would be compensated etc., stop the Israeli government/IDF from it's practice of "indefinite administrative detention without charge" of young Palestinians including children, stop the Israeli government/IDF from gross abuse of Palestinians it detains, stop the Israeli government/IDF from keeping Palestinians in need of medical care detained at checkpoints and border crossings for hours and days, stop the Israeli government/IDF from bulldozing Palestinian crops and homes. There are more things that could be added to this list.

These are things that have gone on for many decades while the world spoke words. These are things done consistently by the Israeli government/IDF in territories they do not have legal right to and they have done these things to a population they have no legal right for committing these acts. They have done so under the protection and with full support from the US and other nations. I have said it before and I will again that the promises made to the Palestinians upon the Partition plan being approved at the UN were never anything more than lies, told knowingly, by the powers at the UN. There was never going to be compensation or right of return. Acquiescing and supporting the extermination and forced displacement of the Palestinians is and has been the unspoken "solution" to the Palestinian issue and we see it now by countries and people too gutless to take even the simplest of diplomatic actions, let alone military, while they wring their worthless hands and run their worthless mouths. The same who speak of morals, freedom, integrity and concern and demand it for themselves and threaten the world for their own protection while watching the slaughter of other's children and can only find empty words and hollow threats that are the province and use of moral cowards.

[Beastly Boy]

14. Release the hostages. Disarm Hamas. Everyone knows how to stop Netanyahu.

[Vthestate]

5. reporting like this happens too much to be fabrication

US aid to criminal organizations is a crime...time to enforce the law. Some of the US government employees need court cases after arrest. Lets start with the speaker of the house.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. Bibi seems to have forgotten

that, without the UN, the current state of Israel would NOT exist as a nation.

[atreides1]

8. Okay

But, that's the past.

As long as Israel has its sugar daddy the US...they'll be able to murder every single Palestinian in Israel and get away with it...while certain groups of Americans sing their praises.

I've read some reports that some Israelis are openly attacking Christians...but that doesn't matter either, does it?

[lark]

9. He's not worried, krasnov is in on the scheme to kill/remove forcibly every Palestinian so he can build a tower.

He and Kusher would coordinate in the profiteering.

[Ken Dayenu]

10. That is like saying Republicans are the Party of Lincoln