9% of Gaza’s population displaced last week by Israel, says OCHA

NEW YORK: The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 9% of the population of the Gaza Strip was displaced during the past week alone due to the Israeli occupation army's evacuation orders. The UN office explained in a statement on Monday that 29,000 people were present in the area that the Israeli army ordered to be evacuated yesterday, Sunday, noting that the repeated displacement deprives civilians of survival with dignity. It pointed out that the UN humanitarian partners estimate that more than 190,000 Palestinians have been displaced this week from Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah since the evacuation order was issued last Monday while hundreds are still trapped east of Khan Younis. The UN office confirmed that the recent evacuation orders and intense hostilities have affected relief operations and undermined efforts to provide essential assistance to civilians in Khan Younis. It added that the continued insecurity and the allocation of only one access point f or the entry and exit of humanitarian workers, namely the Karam Abu Salam crossing, undermined efforts to deploy urgently needed emergency medical teams in Gaza to relieve the burden on the exhausted medical staff in the Strip. Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA