DUBAI, November 27. /TASS/. The number of employees of humanitarian organizations killed in the Gaza Strip has reached 337 since last October, according to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

According to the organization, "since October 2023, at least 337 aid workers, including 330 Palestinians and seven foreigners have been killed." This includes 251 UN staff, of whom 247 were staff members of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), 33 Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) staff and volunteers, and at least 53 other aid workers with national and international NGOs.

On Tuesday, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said that a new record was set with regard to deaths of aid workers in the embattled enclave. "We broke another grim record over the past year in the Gaza Strip, where more than three hundred humanitarian workers have been recorded dead, the majority of them being UN staff, mostly UNRWA personnel," he told a UN Security Council session on protecting civilians and humanitarian personnel in conflict zones.

The situation in the Middle East escalated dramatically when on October 7, 2023, armed Hamas supporters from the Gaza Strip penetrated Israeli territory, killing residents of border settlements and seizing more than 240 hostages. In retaliation, Israel launched a military operation in the enclave in order to destroy the military and political structures of Hamas and liberate all those hostages. The hostilities in the Gaza Strip continue to this day.