More than 190,000 Palestinians have been displaced in 4 days: UN

An Israeli evacuation order has displaced at least 190,000 people in the cities of the Gaza Strip this week, a UN official said on Friday, Anadolu news agency reported.

“Our humanitarian partners estimate that more than 190,000 Palestinians have been displaced this week in Khan Yunis and Deir al Balah since Monday’s evacuation order,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.

Hundreds of others remain stranded in eastern Khan Yunis as the fighting continues, Haq added.

“The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says recent evacuation directives and intense hostilities have destabilized aid operations and hampered efforts to provide critical relief to civilians in Khan Yunis,” he said.

This week, a dozen distribution points for food and eight for cooked meals were forced to halt their operations, and nutrition programs at two shelters supporting more than 2,800 children and pregnant women were also disrupted, he said.

Citing OCHA, Haq said ongoing insecurity and the designation of only one access point, the Kerem Shalom crossing, for the entry and exit of humanitarian staff into and out of Gaza have hampered efforts to deploy additional emergency medical teams in Gaza.

“These workers are critically needed to help support the exhausted local health force,” he said, underlining that none of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is “fully functioning.”

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since a 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas.

Nearly 39,200 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 90,400 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over nine months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.

READ: More than 560 displaced people killed in Gaza while sheltering under UN flag: UNRWA