GAZA: Israeli forces advanced further into southern Gaza to attack Hamas militants, even as international aid organizations expressed concern that Palestinians seeking refuge in the region do not have a haven from the conflict.
Israeli tanks and troops moved near Khan Younis, a southern city that is the second largest in the Gaza Strip, while Israeli aerial attacks hit southern Gaza.
Warnings from the Israeli military in recent days urged people in multiple Khan Younis neighborhoods to evacuate for their safety, directing them to areas farther south.
A new warning Tuesday told people to stay away from Salah al-Din, the main north-south corridor.
Thomas White, Gaza director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said Israel ordered about 600,000 people to leave neighborhoods where fighting could ensue.
But he said on the social media site X that the evacuation could drive them to Rafah, along the southern border with Egypt, where the new refugees could double the number of the displaced already sheltering in the crowded city.
The new arrivals erected tents and pieced together makeshift shelters in the streets or wherever they could find empty spaces around the city, according to the United Nations office for humanitarian affairs.
“The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” the U.N. said.
“If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond. What we see today are shelters with no capacity, a health system on its knees, a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition for people already mentally and physically exhausted — a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster.”
An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the military would observe a temporary pause in attacks in the Rafah area in order to ease the movement of humanitarian supplies.
There is a border crossing in the area used to bring in truckloads of humanitarian aid from Egypt, although U.N. officials have said the amount of aid reaching civilians in Gaza is not nearly enough.
(VOA)
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