A United Nations official was killed along with more than 70 members of his extended family in an Israeli airstrike near Gaza City, while hundreds of people have been killed in the intensified bombardment since the UN Security Council meeting on Friday resolution that was criticized as “completely insufficient“.

Issam Al Mughrabi, 56, who worked for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for three decades, was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.

“For nearly 30 years, Issam has worked with UNDP as part of our assistance program for the Palestinian people,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said in a statement opinion.

“The loss of Issam and his family has touched us all deeply. The United Nations and the civilian population in Gaza are not targets.”

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed condolences to Issam’s family and colleagues and stressed in a post on X that “humanitarian workers should never be victims” and called for a ceasefire.

I am so sad about this tragedy @ASteiner. My deepest condolences go out to everyone who knew and loved Issam and his family, to you and everyone else @UNDP.

Humanitarians should never be victims. We need one #ceasefireNOW In #Gaza.https://t.co/E2r6BCQSBl https://t.co/C7NuyHSLcG

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 23, 2023

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 136 UN staff have been killed.

On Friday, the international organization’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that never in the history of the United Nations have they seen the deaths of their staff in such large numbers.

“Most of our staff have been forced to leave their homes,” he added in a post on X, paying tribute to UN members working in Gaza.

Difficult weekend for Gaza and the Israeli army

The death of the veteran UN worker and his family members comes as Israeli airstrikes continue to kill hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza Ministry of Health announced this on Saturday at least 201 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 370 injured by Israeli forces in Gaza in the last 24 hours.

According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, a 13-year-old child was also killed by an Israeli drone near El Amal Hospital in Khan Younis in the early hours of Sunday.

More than 8,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Reporting from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said that additional residential areas in the city of Deir el-Balah, where people had to be evacuated from places such as the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, were heavily bombed and houses destroyed on Saturday evening destroyed. He said the eastern side of the Gaza Strip was also under heavy airstrikes.

“The search for people under the rubble is currently underway,” said Hani.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher highlighted that it was also a difficult weekend for the Israeli army in Gaza, with five soldiers killed on Friday and eight on Saturday due to heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip.

“You have heard from the Israelis that they have military control in the northern Gaza Strip. “The fact that they are still losing soldiers and that rockets are still being fired from Gaza into Israel suggests that they do not have that control, and that means that this phase of the war is likely to last even longer,” said Fisher, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Difficulty providing assistance

On Friday, after days of delays, the UN passed a resolution that watered down the wording. They called for aid but were unable to agree on a ceasefire. Aid groups say relentless bombing and fierce fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas have hampered the delivery of aid to the besieged enclave where people are starving.

“The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza,” UN chief Guterres said.

“An effective relief operation in Gaza requires security, personnel who can work safely, logistical capacity and the resumption of business activity. These four elements do not exist,” he added.

UNRWA Director Thomas White shared similar concerns, stressing that conditions on the ground should be safe for aid workers to enable aid deliveries to take place.

“We need a ceasefire that stops the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza,” he said.