NEW YORK
At least 44 Palestinians were killed and 220 injured by Israel's attacks on seven UN facilities during last summer’s onslaught in Gaza, a UN board of inquiry found Monday.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks saying, "United Nations premises are inviolable and should be places of safety, especially in a situation of armed conflict."
More than 2,100 Gazans, mostly civilians, were killed and nearly 11,000 injured during seven weeks of Operation Protective Edge, in July and August 2014.
Reports of Israeli assaults against UN schools providing shelter to thousands of displaced Palestinians prompted the UN chief last November to set up a commission to analyze specific incidents in which civilians were killed and damage done to premises.
"It is a matter of the utmost gravity that those who looked to them for protection and who sought and were granted shelter there had their hopes and trust denied," Ban said.
The board of inquiry report, which was transmitted to the Security Council, also found that three UN premises were used by Palestinian armed groups to store arms.
In two cases, the armed groups "probably" fired weapons from these schools, the report said.
"On the discovery by the United Nations of weaponry on United Nations premises, I am dismayed that Palestinian militant groups would put United Nations schools at risk by using them to hide their arms," Ban said.
