UN: 90 percent of Gaza residents displaced by war with Israel

July 9, 2024

United Nations:

According to UN aid agencies, 90 percent of Gaza’s residents have been displaced, some multiple times, as further evacuations have been ordered and lack of security hampers the delivery of aid and fuel.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday that the Israeli military ordered tens of thousands of people living in 19 apartment blocks in Gaza City to immediately evacuate on Sunday and Monday.

Some residents were ordered to evacuate to western Gaza City on Sunday. Monday’s order also covered areas where people had fled a day earlier, urging them to evacuate to emergency shelters in Deir al Balah, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The two directly affected areas include 13 health facilities that were recently operational, including two hospitals, two primary health care centers and nine health care posts,” OCHA said, adding that 13 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were only partially functional.

The office said an estimated nine out of 10 people in Gaza have been displaced, and that new waves of displacement are primarily affecting people who have already been displaced multiple times and then forced to flee again under fire. They have been forced to repeatedly restart their lives without retaining their belongings or any prospect of safety or reliable access to essential services.

“People, especially children, stand in line for hours every day to fetch water,” OCHA said.

“Access to emergency care is also a challenge, especially given the limited range of telecommunications services, the high cost of transportation to hospitals ($26 round trip) and the long walk of at least three kilometers to the nearest medical facility.”

In northern Gaza, aid partners highlighted the lack of safe shelter for up to 80,000 internally displaced people who were forced to hastily flee Shuja’iyeh and other parts of east Gaza City following evacuation orders in late June. Many slept among garbage and rubble, without mattresses or adequate clothing, and some had sought refuge in partially destroyed UN facilities and residential buildings.

The Israeli military has declared the same areas as evacuation zones, causing many of the same families, including young children and the elderly, to endure several waves of displacement over the past two weeks, the office said.

According to OCHA, insecurity, damaged roads, the breakdown of law and order and access restrictions continue to hamper movement along the main humanitarian cargo route between the Kerem Shalom border crossing and Khan Younis and Deir al Balah.

“This has led to critical shortages of fuel and supplies to sustain humanitarian operations. In addition, extremely high temperatures have increased the risk of spoilage and contamination of stranded supplies (especially food),” the office added.

The humanitarian workers said the Food Security Sector (FSS) reported that shortages forced partners to provide reduced food rations in central and southern Gaza in June, affecting their ability to keep bakeries and community kitchens running.

According to OCHA, in Gaza, only seven of the 18 bakeries supported by humanitarian partners – all in Deir al Balah – are still operating, and six bakeries that were already operating at partial capacity have now had to cease operations completely due to fuel shortages.

The office said that communal kitchens were also barely functioning due to a lack of cooking gas and a stable supply of food, resulting in fewer hot meals being prepared throughout the Gaza Strip.

By the end of June, about 600,000 hot meals prepared in 190 kitchens were being distributed daily to families across the Strip, compared to more than 700,000 in the first half of June.

According to OCHA, this means that displaced households rely on burning wood and plastic from furniture and waste for cooking, exacerbating health and environmental risks.

As for cooking, humanitarian partners said they were continuing to distribute wheat flour and canned goods entering northern Gaza through the Erez West crossing, adding that no trucks had entered the area for months.

According to a joint estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Satellite Centre, around 57 percent of Gaza’s cropland and a third of its greenhouses were damaged.

According to FSS, there is an almost complete lack of protein sources such as meat and poultry in the local market, and only a few types of locally produced vegetables are available at prohibitive prices.

The sector reported that ongoing military operations in Rafah and the recent displacement from eastern Khan Younis, where much of the agricultural production was concentrated before the war, have led to further damage to greenhouses, forcing even more people to leave their fields unattended, further destabilizing the food supply.

OCHA said Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported on Friday that teams at the Nasser Medical Complex were “working with emergency medical supplies” and that all departments were overwhelmed with patients, far exceeding available bed capacity.

According to MSF, the Nasser Medical Complex is the main site where field hospitals sterilize their equipment. If the facility remains without power, several field hospitals will also cease operations.

The hospital was said to have been unable to bring medical supplies to Gaza since late April, and most recently on Wednesday it refused to allow trucks carrying MSF medical supplies into the Gaza Strip due to ongoing hostilities.

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