OREANDA-NEWS Women and children account for about 70% of those killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this cannot be called "collateral damage". This was stated by Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

"About 70% of all the dead [in the Gaza Strip] are women and children," he said. According to him, almost 3.2 thousand children were killed in the enclave in three weeks. "These cannot be collateral losses," Lazzarini stressed.

According to him, churches, mosques, hospitals and UNRWA facilities where civilians in the Gaza Strip are trying to find shelter come under fire. "They were not spared, too many people were killed in search of safety. The current siege of Gaza is a collective punishment," Lazzarini said.

The UN representative said that the civilians of Gaza "feel that they are treated differently from other civilians, that they are trapped in this war, which they have nothing to do with, they feel that the whole world equates them with [the radical movement] Hamas."