UN Reports: 9 in 10 People Displaced in Gaza

The United Nations humanitarian agency reported on Wednesday that approximately nine out of every ten people in the Gaza Strip have experienced displacement at least once since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Andrea De Domenico, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories, provided a grim update on the situation. Speaking from occupied al-Quds to reporters in New York and Geneva, De Domenico stated that around 1.9 million people are currently displaced within Gaza.

“We estimate that nine in every ten people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced at least once, if not up to ten times, unfortunately, since October,” De Domenico said. This number is an increase from the previous estimate of 1.7 million due to the recent Israeli onslaughts in Rafah and northern Gaza.

These operations have forced many residents to repeatedly reset their lives, he underlined. “Behind these numbers, there are people who have fears and grievances. They probably had dreams and hopes, which are diminishing more and more each day,” De Domenico added.

“People in the last nine months have been moved around like pawns in a board game.”

The Gaza Strip has been effectively split in two by the Israeli occupation forces’ aggression, and OCHA estimates that there are between 300,000 and 350,000 people in the northern part of the besieged territory who cannot move to the south.

Additionally, since the start of the war on Gaza, around 110,000 people have managed to leave Gaza before the Rafah crossing into Egypt was closed in early May. Some of these individuals remain in Egypt, while others have moved on to other destinations.

Displaced and displaced yet again

On Monday, Palestinians who had been forcefully displaced to the second-largest city in the Gaza Strip, Khan Younis, and those residing there, were ordered to “evacuate”, once again, as the Israeli occupation forces continue to show that nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe.

The forced displacement order came for the eastern half of Khan Younis and a large swath of the Gaza Strip’s south-eastern corner as they were directed to meet displaced Palestinians from Rafah in the al-Mawasi region.

Palestinians in Khan Younis also reportedly received audio messages from Israeli occupation phone numbers ordering them to leave their homes. “We received a message on our mobile phones” to evacuate, said Zeinab Abu Jazar who had been displaced to Khan Younis earlier in the war.

The order to evacuate affects up to 250,000 people, according to the UN.

Hundreds of thousands in the streets

Sigrid Kaag addressed the UN Security Council warning that “Over 1 million people have been displaced once again, desperately seeking shelter and safety (and) 1.9 million people are now displaced across Gaza… I’m deeply concerned about reports of new evacuation orders issued in the area of Khan Yunis.”