BRUSSELS
\nBelgium said Thursday that it would summon Israel\u2019s ambassador to explain the death in a Gaza airstrike of an aid worker with its Enabel development agency, as well as members of his family.
\n\u201cBombing civilian areas and populations is contrary to international law. I will summon the Israeli ambassador to condemn this unacceptable act and demand an explanation,\u201d Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said on X.
\nEnabel said in a statement that Abdallah Nabhan, 33, along with his seven-year-old son, 65-year-old father, 35-year-old brother and six-year-old niece, were killed \u201cafter an Israeli airstrike in the eastern part of the city of Rafah.\u201d
\nThe airstrike hit the family home where 25 people were sheltering, including people displaced by the Israeli military operation in Gaza, Enabel said.
\nIt said that Nabhan, who had worked on a Belgian development project helping young people find jobs, and his family were on a list Israel had of people eligible to exit Gaza, but that they were killed before being granted permission to leave.
\nEnabel\u2019s chief, Jean Van Wetter, called their deaths \u201cyet another flagrant violation by Israel of international humanitarian law.\u201d
\nThe health ministry in Gaza, run by the Hamas militant group, says more than 34,000 people have died in the war being waged in the Palestinian territory, most of them women and children.
\nIsrael is conducting airstrikes and ground operations there in retaliation for a Hamas attack on October 7 that killed around 1,170 people in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.
\nBelgium, which currently holds the EU presidency, is among the European countries most vocal in condemning Israel\u2019s operation as disproportionately deadly for Palestinian civilians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS Belgium said Thursday that it would summon Israel\u2019s ambassador to explain the death in a Gaza airstrike of an aid worker with its Enabel development agency, as well as members of his family. \u201cBombing civilian areas and populations is contrary to international law. I will summon the Israeli ambassador to condemn this unacceptable act […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402788,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-402770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n