According to the UN office, 41% of Gaza territory has received evacuation orders since December
Smoke from shelling rises in the background as displaced Palestinians flee Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 30, 2024. Photo credit: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images
The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of 41% of the Gaza Strip since it began dividing the enclave into numbered blocks in December, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.
Since December, 1,158 square kilometers of Gaza, which 1.38 million people called home before October 7, have been placed under such orders, OHCA said. There are 161 shelters in the area that accommodate around 700,750 internally displaced people, he added.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has urged people to leave certain areas in the Gaza Strip to avoid fighting in its war against Hamas.
On Monday, the Israeli army “demanded” the residents of Al-Nassar, Al-Sheikh Radwan, Al-Shati refugee camp, northern and southern Rimal, Sabra, Al-Sheikh Ajlin and Tel Al-Hawa in the west of Gaza City Evacuation to “designated shelters” in the south “for their safety.”
The new policy covered an area of 12.43 square kilometers, equivalent to 3.4% of the Gaza Strip. According to OCHA, before October 7, this area was home to nearly 300,000 Palestinians and hosted 59 shelters with approximately 88,000 internally displaced people.
Some background: As of January 26, there were an estimated 1.7 million internally displaced people in Gaza, OCHA said, citing UNRWA, adding that ongoing fighting and subsequent evacuation orders had forced some households to move from the shelters where they were initially registered were.