The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday that the areas that the Israeli occupation has requested to be evacuated due to the war it has been waging on the Gaza Strip since October 7, are equivalent to two-thirds of the area of the Gaza Strip.

OCHA said in a statement that the area of the places that Israel wants to evacuate amounted to 246 square kilometers, and this number is equivalent to two-thirds of the area of Gaza, which is about 360 square kilometers.

The statement added that the places that Israel wants to evacuate were occupied by about 1.78 million Palestinians, before last October 7, which is equivalent to 77 percent of the population of Gaza.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of Tuesday, left “27,585 martyrs and 66,978 injured, most of them children and women,” according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused “massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations.

The Israeli attacks caused the forcible displacement of about 1.9 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, most of whom took refuge in the city of Rafah, located in the south of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt. The population of Rafah has increased more than four times to exceed 1.2 million people, and due to the lack of sufficient housing, most of the displaced are struggling to stay in temporary camps.

UNRWA: Gaza residents look forward to returning to their homes

For its part, the International Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) affirmed its continued presence in Gaza to provide whatever assistance it can to the residents of the Strip who are living in tragic conditions at all levels.

Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesman for the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, told the United Nations News website that the people of the Gaza Strip are living “the worst moments of their lives” in light of tragic conditions at all levels and the continued flow of displaced people to the city of Rafah and the Palestinian-Egyptian border.

Abu Hasna warned of the repercussions of a possible Israeli ground military operation in Rafah, stressing that the Strip was facing “dangerous health conditions and unprecedented deterioration” if the situation remained as it was, noting the presence of tens of thousands of random tents erected in the streets, empty places, and around shelter centers.

Abu Hasna described the conditions as bad at the relief and health levels, as well as the conditions of potable water or water suitable for human use, pointing out that gathering most of the residents of the Gaza Strip in the city of Rafah poses unprecedented dangers at all psychological, life, societal, and relief levels in general.

He stressed that the aid that arrives through the Rafah crossing or Kerem Shalom is insufficient, saying, “The aid that reaches us is distributed to UNRWA shelter centers, which are now located in the city of Rafah and the Deir al-Balah area in the central Gaza Strip, but it is not sufficient at all.” He explained that the average daily entry of trucks into the Gaza Strip is approximately 85 trucks, while the average entry of trucks was 500 trucks before the recent escalation in Gaza.

Abu Hasna warned that there are "hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from intestinal infections, chest infections, skin diseases, meningitis, and hepatitis in light of the collapse of the health system, which is an unprecedented situation, and its continuation means that we will see many deaths in the coming days and weeks."

Regarding the implications of the movement of displaced people from Gaza across the border to Egypt until the war ends, Abu Hasna said: “No one can predict what the situation will be or what will happen. The situation in Gaza is very dangerous and for us as UNRWA, we will remain in Gaza and we will continue to provide this aid.” To the displaced Palestinians, what we see is that people want to return to their homes, even if they are destroyed, and set up tents there.”

(Anatolia, Qena, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed)