The United Nations announced today (Saturday) that the Israeli army has expanded evacuation orders to include areas of the central Gaza Strip.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement that the new evacuation orders cover about 15% (about 9 square kilometers) of the central area of the Gaza Strip for evacuation.

The statement added that the Israeli army identified the area in an electronic map published on social media, and it includes the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps and the Al-Zahraa and Al-Mughraqa areas.

About 90,000 people live in the area targeted for evacuation before the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

The UN office statement stated that the area after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip included 6 shelter centers housing about 61,000 displaced people, the vast majority of whom were previously displaced from Gaza City and its north.

The statement added that the instructions accompanying the map published by the army call on residents to move immediately to shelter centers in Deir al-Balah, which are already overcrowded and host hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Following multiple orders issued by Israeli forces to Palestinians to evacuate, many displaced people are now located in the central and southern Gaza Strip, according to the statement.

The two largest sites are located in Rafah Governorate, where thousands have moved elsewhere, setting up temporary structures and tents, and facing extremely crowded conditions inside and outside shelters.

The United Nations estimates that 1.9 million people in Gaza, or nearly 85% of the population, have become internally displaced, including people who have been displaced multiple times, at a time when food shortages and poor hygiene are exacerbating already poor living conditions, increasing protection and mental health problems, and increasing the prevalence of diseases.