JERUSALEM (JTA) — Masked gunmen set fire to a United Nations-run summer camp in Gaza.
The attack overnight Monday is the second in several weeks on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency summer camp for Palestinian children.
About 25 vandals tied up the camp guards and set the building and equipment afire, according to reports. They reportedly are opposed to the camps because girls and boys mix during the programs. Hamas reportedly runs its own gender-separate camps where children study the Koran.
The UNRWA runs 1,200 summer camps for 250,000 Gaza children.
"This is another example of the growing levels of extremism in Gaza and further evidence, if that were needed, of the urgency to change the circumstances on the ground," UNRWA Gaza director John Ging said in a statement.
He called the attack a "cowardly and despicable act" and vowed to rebuild.
Another U.N.-run camp was attacked May 23.
