ReutersThe United Nations says it has suspended aid operations in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s military evacuation of the central Palestinian territory.
A senior UN official told reporters that their humanitarian team could not operate on Monday due to safety concerns.
They said evacuation orders for several areas of the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in and around the central town of Deir al-Balah – home to the main UN operations centre – forced staff to move quickly and abandon equipment.
However, the official stressed that UN agencies will not leave Gaza and are currently trying to find somewhere to operate safely.
The Israeli military said it issued the evacuation order to try to protect civilians during operations against Hamas and other militant groups.
Earlier on Monday, the army said it was continuing to “destroy terrorist infrastructure” and “eliminate terrorists” on the outskirts of Deir al-Balah.
According to the United Nations, the main provider and distributor of humanitarian aid in the territory, up to 88.5% of Gaza has been under evacuation orders since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out.
That has forced some 1.8 million people to take shelter inside the humanitarian zone, which is just 41 square kilometres (15.8 square miles) and lacks vital infrastructure and basic services.
The Israeli military launched an operation in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.
More than 40,430 people have died in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Local officials in Deir al-Balah say some 250,000 people have been forced to leave some neighborhoods of the town since August 16, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began issuing evacuation orders there.
Humanitarian staff from various UN agencies, NGOs and service providers, along with their families, have also been displaced due to the order.
The United Nations said A new order issued Sunday covers a neighborhood in the south of town. affected 15 United Nations and non-governmental organization facilities, as well as four United Nations warehouses.
“We cannot carry out our mission today under the current conditions,” a senior UN official said on Monday. “As of this morning, we are not operating in Gaza.”
However, UN staff have been instructed to find solutions so that operations can continue.
“We are not leaving because the people need us there,” the official said. “We are trying to balance the needs of the people with the need for the safety and security of UN staff.”
Sam Rose, senior deputy field director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), who is currently in Deir al-Balah, warned that both UN staff and Palestinian civilians were “crammed into increasingly small areas in Gaza”.
“The humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk. It is now about 11 percent of the entire Gaza Strip,” he told reporters in New York via video link. “This is not just 11 percent of land that is fit to live in, fit to serve, fit to live in. These are sand dunes, these are densely populated areas where people live close together, doing whatever they can to survive.”
“It is in these circumstances that polio has recently re-emerged in Gaza, with a small number of cases. The disease can spread very quickly,” he added.
“Children are malnourished. A health care system is devastated. Water and sanitation are very poor. People live in garbage, in lakes of sewage. They are stressed, they are anxious, their immune systems are suppressed.”
Mr Rose said Unrwa and other UN agencies were focusing their efforts on a polio vaccination campaign scheduled to start this Saturday, with the aim of inoculating more than 640,000 children and preventing outbreaks.
“The vaccines are being used. We call for calm, a humanitarian pause to allow vaccination programs to be approved and successfully implemented.”
ReutersDoctors Without Borders (MSF) also warned that the latest evacuation order in Deir al-Balah also affected areas near al-Aqsa hospital, the town’s main medical facility.
The medical charity said in a statement on X that an explosion about 250m (820ft) from the hospital on Sunday caused panic, with many people choosing to leave afterwards.
“MSF is therefore considering whether to temporarily suspend wound care while trying to continue life-saving treatment. Of the approximately 650 patients, only 100 remain in hospital, with seven in intensive care, according to the Ministry of Health,” the report added.
“This situation is unacceptable. Al-Aqsa has been operating beyond capacity for weeks due to a lack of alternative options for patients. All parties to the conflict must respect the hospital and the right of patients to access medical care.”
Dr Anas Ibrahim, an emergency physician at the hospital, told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme on Monday that the situation there was “indescribable”.
“As news of the evacuation spread, patients with broken bones and injuries began to evacuate the hospital for fear of being attacked,” he said.
“The feeling of horror, fear and panic has overwhelmed everyone at the hospital. Everyone is scared now… everyone is waiting to see what will happen.”
The IDF said the evacuation order does not include nearby hospitals or medical facilities and that patients and medical staff do not need to leave.
