Two officials from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have reiterated that the situation in the Gaza Strip is “catastrophic” and that the area in which people are confined in the Strip is “very small,” in light of receiving more evacuation orders for areas throughout Gaza over the past two weeks.

According to the organization's official website, UNRWA spokeswoman in Gaza, Louise Waterridge, and UNRWA's first deputy field director, Wissam Rose, gave a video press briefing last night from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of people are forced to move every day from one place to another, in search of safe shelter, Waterridge said, noting that what we are seeing now are “families, mothers and children dragging their belongings and being forced to move, not knowing where to go.”

“There are tanks in areas that were previously known as safe areas, and this is just further evidence that Gaza is not a safe place,” she added. “People have nowhere to go, no way to find safety, and access to humanitarian resources is very limited, because humanitarian operations are also being displaced under these evacuation orders.”

For his part, the first deputy field director of UNRWA said, "The recent series of evacuation orders has reduced the humanitarian area declared by the Israeli entity to only 11 percent of the entire Gaza Strip, which in reality is sand dunes and crowded areas, where people are crowded and doing everything they can to survive."

He warned of the environment in which polio could spread, pointing to "children suffering from malnutrition, a destroyed health sector, very poor water and sanitation services and conditions, and people living among garbage and pools of sewage, feeling stressed and anxious and their immune systems weakened."

The UN official confirmed that they are now directing their efforts to make the polio vaccination campaign, which will begin next Saturday, a success, targeting about 640,000 children, as 40 percent of these children will receive vaccines from UNRWA, which is a major player in that campaign.