UN blames Israeli tank for deadly strike on ‘clearly marked’ vehicle

The United Nations claims an Israeli tank attacked a clearly marked UN vehicle on Monday, killing a UN security officer from India and wounding another security officer from Jordan.

The United Nations has no doubt that shots from an Israeli tank hit the back of a white UN vehicle en route to the European hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq says.

He tells reporters that the UN Department of Safety and Security, which employed the two staffers, has set up a fact-finding panel to discover the circumstances of the incident; the United Nations is in discussion with Israeli authorities, he adds.

The IDF said earlier that the pair had been driving through an area where fighting was ongoing and indicated issues with deconfliction.

“An initial inquiry conducted indicates that the vehicle was hit in an area declared an active combat zone,” the military said, maintaining that it had “not been made aware of the route of the vehicle.”

Haq identifies the UN staff member killed as Waibhav Anil Kale. He is the first international employee of the United Nations to be killed in the current war in Gaza.

On his LinkedIn page, Kale said he left the Indian army as a deputy sector commander in July 2022 and then worked for Amazon as a program manager until June 2023. He joined the UN in April as a security coordination officer. Indian media said he was 46 and a retired army colonel.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs identifies the injured UN staffer as Yara Dababneh and says a Jordanian military aircraft was slated to fly her from Jerusalem — where she was being transferred — to Amman for treatment at Al-Hussein Medical City, a military medical complex.

“She’s receiving medical attention,” Haq says. “We believe that she will make it through.”

ToI staff contributed to this post.