Highlights of the noon briefing by Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General (excerpt on Occupied Palestinian Territory) 05 July 2024

05 July 2024

(Excerpt)

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OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that some 250,000 people in southern Gaza are estimated to live in parts of eastern Khan Younis and Rafah that were recently placed under an evacuation order by the Israeli authorities.

Those displaced have moved toward western Khan Younis and Deir Al Balah, areas that are already overcrowded and lack basic services, shelter materials, critical infrastructure and sufficient space to accommodate the influx of new arrivals. The order covers 85 square kilometres, or just under one quarter of the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, OCHA led assessments at two sites where displaced people are sheltering, including families who fled due to the latest evacuation order. More than 9,000 households are living at a site in Khan Younis, and nearly 1,000 households at a site in Deir El Balah – with just 650 tents. OCHA reports that these families all need safe drinking water, with people – especially children – spending long hours queueing to collect water each day.

Children living there have been out of school for months, with lack of space and materials preventing partners from providing education services. At one of the displacement sites, children spend most of their time outside, near informal dumping areas. Parents have reported a surge in skin and waterborne diseases. Neither site has health points available, and the closest medical services are at least three kilometres away.

OCHA says the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis is now empty and no longer functional. There is no equipment remaining, and all patients evacuated, some of them leaving in beds with their IV drips.

In northern Gaza, OCHA is concerned about the conditions of up to 80,000 people who were displaced from Ash Shuja’iyyeh and other parts of eastern Gaza City, following an Israeli evacuation order on 27 June.

Alongside other humanitarian partners, OCHA assessed some of the sites hosting those displaced, who say they had to flee hastily, under shelling and without any of their belongings. Shelter and sanitary conditions at the displacement sites are poor, and many people are having to sleep amid solid waste and rubble, with no mattresses and lacking enough clothing. Others have found shelter in UN facilities that had been partially destroyed. Some of those displaced people report having been separated from family members.

Meanwhile, humanitarian partners report that the lack of fuel in Gaza is increasingly hampering the provision of health care. In a social media post yesterday, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned of further disruption to health services due to severe fuel shortages. He said that only 90,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza on Wednesday, when the health sector alone requires 80,000 litres each day. Dr. Tedros stressed that the UN and partners are being forced to make impossible choices, with limited fuel supplies now being directed to key hospitals to prevent services from grinding to a halt.

Fuel shortages also continue to have an acute impact on water and sanitation infrastructure and living conditions across Gaza. Humanitarian partners say they received less than 52,000 litres of fuel between 22 and 28 June to operate critical water and wastewater facilities. Though this is more than what was received the previous week, the supplies were sufficient for just 10 per cent of daily requirements. As a result, at least half of the remaining functional water wells across Gaza temporarily stopped pumping water, and more than 100 water trucks have ceased operations. Two desalination plants in central and southern Gaza also had to suspend operations on Sunday and Monday due to lack of fuel.

Ongoing hostilities and access constraints continue to severely hinder the delivery of life-saving aid to hundreds of thousands of people across Gaza. Between Monday and yesterday, just one of 13 planned humanitarian assistance missions to northern Gaza was facilitated by Israeli authorities – with the rest denied, impeded or canceled due to logistical, operational, or security reasons.

In southern Gaza, movements to and from the Kerem Shalom Crossing continue to be hampered by security risks, most recently following Monday’s evacuation order for areas in eastern Khan Younis that encompass parts of Salah Ad Din Road, a crucial artery for the passage of humanitarian goods and personnel.