ISTANBUL

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UNRWA, has said it led a mission to assess the damage inflicted on its facilities as a result of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

In a statement released on X on Sunday, the agency said: "UNRWA and UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) led a critical mission to assess damage to the agency facilities, marking any shrapnel and unexploded ordnance."

It also highlighted that a staggering 165 agency installations across the Gaza Strip had been affected during the course of the war.

The UNMAS, for its part, emphasized the enormity of the task ahead, noting: "Making Gaza safe from unexploded ordnance could take 14 years."

Israel has launched a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 34,400 Palestinians have since been killed and thousands injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave's population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

* Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul