UN says Israeli evacuation orders force thousands of Palestinians out of Khan Younis

The United Nations said yesterday that thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip following new Israeli evacuation orders.

The UN said in a post on X that thousands of Palestinians have left Khan Younis, seeking refuge in temporary shelters amidst rubble and along the coastline.

Images accompanying the UN’s publication depict Palestinian families transporting their belongings during the forced displacement, while others are shown setting up tents on the beach.

This recent wave of displacement adds to the longstanding humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where residents continue to endure precarious living conditions amid the persisting Israeli genocide, now in its ninth month.

For his part, the head of the UN’s Palestine refugee agency has denounced Israel’s new evacuation orders for the people in Gaza, saying that the “continuous cycle of displacement and despair must stop.”

Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X on Friday that Israel issued new evacuation orders for people in Gaza last week “forcing hundreds of thousands out of Khan Younis & Rafah in the south.”

“These evacuation orders – the largest issued since October- impact nearly a quarter of a million people, most of them already displaced, multiple times,” he noted.

Lazzarini, who is the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that “people have nowhere to go.”

“They desperately search for nonexistent safety, setting up makeshift structures often in the rubble of bombed-out buildings. The risk of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is spreading,” he noted.

He wrote that a nine-year-old Palestinian girl was reportedly killed by UXO in Khan Younis, and another six children were injured.

“The risk for children is especially high. They spend hours collecting water and food & walk long distances amid piles of accumulated waste that could be covering UXOs,” he added.

“This continuous cycle of displacement, constant being on ‘survival mode’ & despair must stop,” he concluded.

“Israel” launched its barbaric military campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. It has since killed about 38,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Source: Agencies

B.Q.