The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced today, Thursday, the targeting of four of its schools and the evacuation of five other schools in the Gaza Strip during the past 24 hours.

UNRWA said in a statement, a copy of which was received by Xinhua News Agency, that its school in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip was directly targeted, while three schools in Gaza City and the central Strip were subjected to indirect impacts.

The agency stated that it had completely evacuated five of its schools serving as shelters for displaced persons in towns east of Khan Yunis Governorate, south of the Gaza Strip, following direct orders issued by Israeli forces to facility managers.

Yesterday, the Israeli army allocated an additional area in the city of Khan Yunis, with an area of about one square kilometer, for immediate evacuation.

More than 1.9 million people (or more than 85% of the population) were displaced throughout the Gaza Strip, including about 1.2 million displaced people residing in 155 UNRWA facilities in all five governorates of the Strip, including the north and Gaza City.

UNRWA announced the killing of two of its employees, bringing the number of deaths among UN agency employees to 132 since the start of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, which is the highest death toll for United Nations employees during wars in its history.

For his part, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that the number of civilians being killed in the Gaza Strip is "increasing rapidly," noting that civilians, including women, children, the elderly, the sick, and people with special needs, are suffering the most.

Lazzarini warned that at least 60,000 additional people had to move to already overcrowded UNRWA shelters in recent days, with more people demanding shelter.

He said, "The evacuation order forces people to concentrate in an area less than a third of the size of the Gaza Strip, and they need everything: food, water, shelter, and mostly safety."

He added, "Access to water is limited, as the Israeli operation blocked access to the largest desalination plant in Gaza, which previously provided drinking water to a total of 350,000 people."

Lazzarini warned of the risk of stopping the largest hospital in southern Gaza, which includes more than a thousand resident patients and shelters 17,000 displaced people due to a lack of supplies and insufficient staff.

The Commissioner-General of UNRWA stressed that "there is no safe place in Gaza, whether in Rafah or anywhere in what is unilaterally called the safe zone," reiterating the call for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a large-scale war against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), leaving more than 17,000 Palestinians dead after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, which, according to the Israeli authorities, claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Israelis.