Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X on Friday that Israel issued new evacuation orders for people in Gaza last week “forcing hundreds of thousands out of Khan Younis & Rafah in the south.”
“These evacuation orders - the largest issued since October- impact nearly a quarter of a million people, most of them already displaced, multiple times,” he noted.
Lazzarini, who is the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that “people have nowhere to go.”
“They desperately search for nonexistent safety, setting up makeshift structures often in the rubble of bombed-out buildings. The risk of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is spreading,” he noted.
He wrote that a nine-year-old Palestinian girl was reportedly killed by UXO in Khan Younis, and another six children were injured.
“The risk for children is especially high. They spend hours collecting water and food & walk long distances amid piles of accumulated waste that could be covering UXOs,” he added.
“This continuous cycle of displacement, constant being on ‘survival mode’ & despair must stop,” he concluded.
Israel launched its barbaric military campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. The regime has since killed about 38,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Israel’s genocidal war has placed vast swathes of Gaza in ruins, pushing 85 percent of the region's population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
AMK/PressTV
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