GAZA: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on Friday said nearly 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced over the past month due to ongoing Israeli military strikes.
“Over the last month in Gaza, around half a million people have been newly displaced,” UNRWA said in a statement.
“The multiple displacement orders issued by the Israeli military leave Palestinians with less than a third of Gaza’s area to live in,” the agency said, warning “that remaining space is fragmented, unsafe, and barely livable.”
“Overcrowded shelters are in a terrible condition, service providers are struggling to operate, and the last resources are being depleted,” UNRWA added.
Gaza’s civil defense agency on Friday said that the death toll from an Israeli air strike the day before on a house in the north of the Palestinian territory had risen to 23.
Since the war began on October 7, 2023, following Hamas’s attack on Israel, Gaza’s northern Jabalia area has been a repeated focal point of Israel’s military offensive.
Israel resumed its military assault in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel’s army chief, visiting troops in Gaza on Thursday, threatened to expand the offensive in Gaza if hostages are not freed by Hamas.
Gaza death toll surges to 51,400
At least 51,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in an Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Additionally, Israel is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its military actions in the enclave.
