The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said yesterday that more than 32,000 internally displaced Palestinians have fled the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip over the past two days.
“Families look for safety, but damage & destruction is their only horizon in the #GazaStrip. No place is safe from endless bombardment. People forced to leave everything behind; their lives at risk every day #CeasefireNow,” it added on X.
In the past two days, over 32,000 people have fled #Rafah
Families look for safety, but damage & destruction is their only horizon in the #GazaStrip. No place is safe from endless bombardment.
People forced to leave everything behind; their lives at risk every day #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/Mw4n0l6S5F
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 30, 2024
Earlier on Thursday, UNRWA Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip “has produced a blatant disregard for the mission” of the UN, including attacks on employees, facilities and operations of the UNRWA.
“These attacks must stop and the world must act to hold the perpetrators accountable,” he wrote in an opinion piece published in the New York Times.
He said UNRWA staff are regularly harassed and humiliated at Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Read: IFRC head says killings of healthcare workers ‘must stop’
Lazzarini noted that at least 192 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza and more than 170 UNRWA premises have been damaged or destroyed.
“UNRWA is not the only UN agency that faces danger. In April, gunfire hit World Food Program and UNICEF vehicles, apparently inadvertently but despite coordination with the Israeli authorities,” he said.
Israel launched a brutal offensive on Gaza in October 2023, killing more than 36,224 Palestinians and injuring 81,777 others.
Nearly eight months into the war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week ordered the occupation state to halt its military offensive on Rafah, southern Gaza.