The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) suspended its work in Rafah after the Israeli army entered the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.
“UNRWA had to disrupt healthcare and other critical services in Rafah,” the UN agency chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on social media platform X on Saturday night.
The humanitarian organization is now working from the city of Khan Younis, north of Rafah, and the center of the Gaza Strip. “In Khan Younis we have restarted operations despite the damage caused to all our facilities,” Lazzarini wrote.
A spokesperson for the organization confirmed to dpa on Saturday evening that UNRWA staff had left Rafah and were continuing their work in Khan Younis.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued its operation in Rafah, Gaza, on Saturday, despite extensive international criticism.
Israel considers Rafah the last stronghold of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which sparked the current conflict in Gaza after killing hundreds of civilians in Israel on October 7.
Many of Israel’s allies, however, vehemently opposed a military incursion into Rafah due to the high number of civilians who took shelter there from fighting elsewhere in the coastal area. Since then, many of them have left Rafah again.
According to the head of UNRWA, there are currently 1.7 million people in Khan Younis, in the south of the coastal zone and in the center of the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA began to gradually resume its work in Khan Younis following the withdrawal of the Israeli army in April and now mainly provides services there.
Previously, the agency’s work focused on Rafah. Lazzarini said all of the humanitarian organization’s 36 shelters are now empty.
UNRWA said thousands of displaced people now live among rubble and in destroyed facilities of humanitarian organizations in the Jabalia refugee camp, after the Israeli army recently withdrew from the city in the northern Gaza Strip.
