Local officials in Deir al-Balah say some 250,000 people have been forced to flee several neighborhoods in the city since August 16, when the Israel Defense Forces began issuing evacuation orders there.
These orders have also led to the displacement of humanitarian workers from various UN agencies, NGOs and service providers, along with their families.
The United Nations said A new order was issued on Sunday, covering one area in the south of the city., external The attack affected 15 UN and NGO premises, as well as four UN warehouses.
“We are unable to provide assistance today under the circumstances we are living in. As of this morning, we are no longer operating in Gaza,” the senior UN official said on Monday.
However, UN staff have been directed to find solutions that will allow operations to resume.
“We are not leaving because people need us there. We are trying to balance the needs of the population with the need for the safety and security of UN staff,” the official said.
Sam Rose, deputy field director for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Deir al-Balah, warned that UN staff and Palestinian civilians were “under pressure in smaller areas of Gaza.”
“The humanitarian area that Israel declared has shrunk. It now represents about 11 percent of the entire Gaza Strip. And this is not just 11 percent of the land that is habitable, that is serviceable, that is life. It is sand dunes, it is crowded areas where people live side by side, doing whatever they can to survive,” he told reporters in New York via video link.
“Under these very circumstances, polio has recently re-emerged in Gaza, with a small number of cases. It could spread very quickly,” he added.
“Children suffering from malnutrition. A deteriorating health care sector. Very poor water and sanitation. People living among garbage and sewage lakes. They are stressed and anxious, and their immune systems are weak.”
Rose said UNRWA and other UN agencies were focusing their efforts on a polio vaccination campaign scheduled to start next Saturday, which aims to vaccinate more than 640,000 children and prevent the spread of the disease.
“The vaccines have arrived. We call for calm, and for humanitarian pauses to allow vaccination programmes to pass and be successfully implemented.”
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