UN food agency intensifies calls for Gaza cease-fire after staff come under fire

ROME — An Israeli airstrike last month demolished the top floor of a guest house in Gaza where World Food Program international staff were staying, the U.N. agency’s director said Thursday, calling the situation “impossibly dangerous” for aid workers trying to feed the Palestinian population.

The previously undisclosed incident occurred Aug. 31 in the Nuseirat refugee camp, just days after WFP temporarily stopped aid deliveries to northern Gaza and halted staff movements when its team came under fire near an Israel checkpoint.

“It was always dangerous before. It’s become impossibly dangerous now,’’ McCain said.

The World Food Program is in touch with the Israeli Defense Force over the strike on the house where 11 U.N. employees, including 10 WFP staff, were staying. None was injured and they have been evacuated to Jordan, where McCain met with them this week.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McCain said she has a simple message for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Cease-fire, please. Cease fire! Stop! We need to feed these people,'' she said. “It’s not just food. ... It’s water and sanitation also.”

While she and staff remain committed to their mission in Gaza, “We’re right on the edge as to whether we even stay in there,’’ McCain said. “I want to stay in there. I’m not suggesting we’re going to pull out. But I have to take a look at what I am asking my people to do.”

She emphasized the difficulty of operating in a so-called deconflicted zone that was supposed to be safe for humanitarian workers to operate.

Israel forces "are hitting places where we’ve been told it was safe, we have been told have been deconflicted and that refugees were safe. And it’s not the case. It’s not,” she said.