CAIRO, November 2. /TASS/. At least 70 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have been killed since the conflict in the Middle East flared up on October 7, the agency said in a statement on its website.

"In the last 24 hours, three additional UNRWA staff have been killed, bringing the total to 70 UNRWA colleagues killed since 7 October," the statement said. According to it, "Some 690,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are sheltering in 149 installations across the Gaza Strip. An estimated 160,000 are housed in 57 shelters in the north and in Gaza City." The agency points out that it "is no longer able to provide services to the displaced persons in those areas."

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and has begun delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.