The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday that forced displacement forced more than one million people to flee the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
Relief organizations reported that about a million Palestinians were living in the small city located on the southern tip of Gaza after fleeing Israeli attacks in other areas of the Strip.
Since early May, the Israeli army has carried out what it says is a “limited operation” in Rafah to root out fighters from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and dismantle the infrastructure used by the movement that runs Gaza.
The Israeli army issued orders for civilians to move to an “expanded humanitarian zone” about 20 kilometers away.
Many Palestinians, who have moved north and south in the Gaza Strip in the past few months, said they are vulnerable to Israeli attacks wherever they go.
UNRWA said that thousands of families have now resorted to living in damaged and destroyed facilities in the city of Khan Yunis, where the agency provides basic services despite “increasing challenges.”
“The conditions cannot be described,” she added.