Around a million people have fled Rafah in recent weeks, the United Nations refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday, as Israel intensifies its attacks on the southern Gaza city.
The city was believed to be home to more than a million Palestinians who fled south as the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensified in Gaza.
UNRWA said the Palestinian movement “took place with nowhere safe to go and amid shelling, lack of food and water, piles of rubbish and inadequate living conditions”.
The agency added that providing aid to people in the city is now almost “impossible”, citing increasing fighting and logistical concerns. Palestinian refugees in Gaza now face “an unprecedented health emergency”, the organization said in its report. annual reportalso released Tuesday.
Most of those who fled have moved to an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” nearby, although aid groups have noted that the area is undersupplied and overcrowded.
“As we can see, there is nothing ‘humanitarian’ about these areas,” said Suze van Meegen, head of Gaza operations at the Norwegian Refugee Council. told the Associated Press.
The area has no central kitchen, market or hospitals, with the only medical care coming from small tents. There is also limited access to water and sewage infrastructure.
“It’s only a matter of time before people start to suffer greatly from food insecurity,” said Mercy Corps, a non-governmental organization focused on providing humanitarian aid.
The Israeli military slowly invaded Rafah despite strong warnings from the Biden administration. President Biden warned earlier this month that he would halt military aid shipments to Israel if it invaded Rafah without a plan approved by U.S. leaders to limit civilian casualties.
More than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people is believed to be sheltering in Rafah, and more than 80 percent of the territory’s total population is displaced from their homes. The UN said famine has broken out in parts of the region as civilians struggle to access humanitarian aid.
More than 120 humanitarian aid trucks entered the city on Sunday from Egypt, the first since the Israeli military seized the crossing earlier this month. It was not immediately clear whether local aid groups would be able to access the humanitarian supplies, however, according to APas fighting in the area has hampered humanitarian work.
Much of southern Gaza, including Rafah, has been largely without aid since the Israeli military began what it described as a limited operation in the area earlier this month. Humanitarian convoys with supplies for aid groups to distribute for free have now fallen to almost wartime lows, the UN said.
A U.S.-built floating dock has begun delivering some aid to the area, although aid groups say it is far less than promised and there are not enough trucks to adequately distribute the supplies.
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