Desperate Palestinians fleeing Israel’s growing ground offensive are gathering in a shrinking area of the Gaza Strip as the war enters its third month.
Tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting have gathered in the border town of Rafah, in the far south of the strip, and in Muwasi, a nearby arid coastal area that Israel has declared a safe zone.
With shelters well beyond capacity, many people have set up tents along the road from Rafah to Muwasi, living crowded together in unsanitary shelters without enough food.
The United Nations warned Friday that its humanitarian operation was “in tatters” because no place in the besieged enclave is safe. “We no longer have a humanitarian operation in southern Gaza that can bear this name,” warned UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.
The World Food Program (WFP) says its capacity to supply basic necessities to Gaza is on the verge of collapse. “There is not enough food. People are starving,” WFP deputy director Carl Skau wrote on X, formerly Twitter, following a visit to the coastal strip.
As only a fraction of the necessary food reaches the Gaza Strip, there is a lack of fuel and no one is safe, Skau continued in a WFP statement, adding: “We cannot do our job.” .
Israel has designated al-Mawasi, on the Mediterranean coast of the besieged territory, as a safe zone. But the UN and humanitarian agencies have called the solution poorly planned.
Israeli forces have killed more than 17,700 people in Gaza – 70 percent of them women and children – in two months and injured more than 48,780, according to the territory’s health ministry, which says many other people are trapped under the rubble.
Israel said Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in its October 7 attack and took more than 240 prisoners. About 130 prisoners remain in Gaza, mostly soldiers and civilians, after more than 100 were freed, most during a truce last month.