10/5/2024–|Last updated: 10/5/202404:44 PM (Mecca time)
More than 110,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip since the Israeli occupation army began an attack on the eastern neighborhoods of the city last Monday, while United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that invading the city would lead to a “massive humanitarian catastrophe.”
“We are actively working with all parties concerned to resume the entry of life-saving supplies, including much-needed fuel, through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings,” Guterres said during a visit to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Friday. He added that famine looms on the horizon.
At the same time, Georgios Petropoulos, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, said, “The latest evacuation order issued by the Israeli government related to the military operation has so far affected 110,000 people or more who have been displaced north.”
He added during the regular United Nations press conference in Geneva that “most of these people have been forced to flee 5 or 6 times” since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza.
30 thousand displaced people daily
Petropoulos confirmed that 30,000 people are displaced from Rafah every day, explaining that without supplies in the coming days, it is expected that a large number of health facilities will lack the fuel necessary to continue working, and stressed that the situation has reached “unprecedented emergency levels.”
This includes 5 hospitals affiliated with the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 5 field hospitals, 17 primary health care centers run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) with other partners, 10 mobile clinics providing vaccination services and treatment of psychological trauma and malnutrition, and 23 medical facilities in the Al-Mawasi area located To the north of Rafah.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, water pumping in Rafah has been stopped and facilities are being maintained sufficiently to prevent permanent loss.
“Main water production has stopped in the northern Gaza governorates and Gaza City, leaving 450,000 people with very limited access to drinking water,” the office said.
He explained that the food stocks of the World Food Program and UNRWA will run out in the coming days.
In turn, Hamish Young, chief emergency coordinator at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the Gaza Strip, stressed the need for the Israeli army to refrain from invading Rafah, and called for the immediate flow of fuel and aid to the Strip.
Speaking from Rafah, he said, “Yesterday I was walking around the Al-Mawasi area, where Rafah residents were asked to move.”
He added, “More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah during the past five days, and the displacement is still continuing.”
He explained, “Shelters are increasing on the sand dunes in Al-Mawasi, and it has now become difficult to move between the mass of tents and tarpaulins.”