United Nations Radio

In what Israel has labelled "a grave mistake," the United Nations compound in Gaza has been bombed, injuring three people and destroying relief supplies.

boy flees an explosion in Gaza

The compound houses the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA. Karen AbuZayd, UNRWA's Director-General, explains what happened:

AbuZayd: Well, a number of things happened. It's taken a number of hits, direct hits, and it's taken a number of collateral damage hits where shrapnel's come in and hurt some of the neighbourhood with people who were taking shelter in our compound.

Narrator: According to Ms. AbuZayd, one of the most serious effects of the bombing has been the resulting fires, which at this writing, were still burning:

AbuZayd: There were some phosphorous bombs that came into the compound and they've been creating fires ever since; you know it's very difficult to put this stuff out. So we managed to get a number of fuel tankers out of the compound; we were lucky on that but at great danger to our staff to move them, and to protect one of our smaller warehouses. But the fires at about an hour ago jumped to our large warehouse and are just flaming and ruining everything, destroying everything that's in the warehouses which are the supplies for all the humanitarian agencies in the Gaza Strip.

Narrator: UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon condemned the bombing in the strongest of terms. He arrived in Israel after talks in Egypt and Jordan as part of his diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire and bring an end to the crisis. Ahmad Fawzi is his spokesman for this mission:

Fawzi: SG was quite upset by the incident this morning where Israeli defense forces fired on the UNRWA headquarters compound in Gaza City. He called defense minister Barak to protest and express his outrage at this incident. And the defense minister said that it was a grave mistake. It should not have happened and he will take every precaution to make sure that it does not happen again.

Narrator: Meanwhile, UNRWA and various governments have made both verbal and written protests to the highest levels of the Israeli Government against the bombing. Ms. Abu Zayd says Israel is aware of the UN's location on the ground and in the past, has worked to avoid it in the bombing:

AbuZayd: Oh, of course! Yes. No, no: They have all of our GPS coordinates and they're usually very careful, or pretty careful, about avoiding them and making sure our staff is safe and so on and we can continue our work because it's important to them, the humanitarian activities. So of course we've complained to everyone from the beginning when it first started at 7 o'clock this morning, but we didn't get anything. It just kept going on until well after 11:30 this morning, then sporadically it's still happening so that hasn't help to make protests. We have the Secretary-General being here, of course, has taken it up with his interlocutors including the Minister of Defense who said it was a grave mistake and they apologize-that doesn't help us a lot now, with those phosphorous fires going on.

Narrator: The trucks used to deliver food on a daily basis to Gaza City residents cut off by the fighting were unable to leave the compound today because of the fire. Ms. Abu Zayd describes plans that are already in the works to continue operations from another location while the damage to the compound and the loss of commodities is being assessed:

AbuZayd: We were moving things from Kerem Shalom to Rafa to warehouses we have elsewhere. We're already making plans because the warehouses are destroyed now which are, you know, really going to be important when if we do have a cease-fire and we have the recovery phase. There will be so many things that will come in-more than now, these days. So we're already looking at other places that we can store things and distribute from because yes, we have to keep going.

Narrator: And the Secretary-General continues his mission to bring peace to the region and stop the fighting:

SG: I sincerely hope that this ceasefire will be attained as soon as possible.

Producer: Gerry Adams

(duration: 3'51")