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SvennoJ on 23 August 2024
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Ninety percent of Gaza’s population is displaced: UN

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has decried the mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, as the Israeli army continues to issue more evacuation orders for various parts of the Strip.

“Mass evacuations in Gaza choke survival and severely constrain aid operations,” Muhannad Hadi, humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory was quoted as saying in a post on X.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled parts of Deir el-Balah as the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders yesterday, and its forces advanced deeper into the overcrowded central city.

The area was previously designated by Israel as a so-called “humanitarian safe zone” for civilians, but the Israeli army ordered residents, many of them displaced multiple times already, to leave before a new military operation there.


Two million Palestinians in Gaza crammed in 39sq km: Report

The Israeli military’s expanded ground operations in recent weeks have pushed Palestinians out of large swaths of previously designated safe zones, crowding them into smaller and smaller slivers of land.

As a result, more than two million people in the enclave are now crammed in an area of 15 square miles (39sq km), reports The Wall Street Journal.

The overcrowding, on top of inadequate aid, is “choking survival”, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

That's over 50K per square km, comparable to the population density in Guttenberg, New Jersy, in tents in the desert.


COGAT claims 234 aid trucks entered Gaza on Thursday

The Israeli Defence Ministry agency that oversees the occupied Palestinian territory has claimed that 234 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Thursday.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said 206 trucks arrived through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in southern Gaza and 28 through the Beit Hanoon (Erez) crossing in the north. Trucks arrived from Israel, Egypt and the Ashdod port, it said.

COGAT also claimed that of the 105 truckloads of goods that were collected from the Gaza side of Karem Abu Salem, 100 were retrieved by the private sector and only five by UN agencies. It added that about 490 truckloads of goods are waiting to be collected, 420 of which are for UN aid.

The UN and other international organisations, however, continue to report Israeli restrictions on aid delivery to Gaza.

And mostly obstructing aid deliver inside Gaza.


Polio vaccine must reach all children under 10 in Gaza: UNRWA chief

To stop polio from spreading, it is crucial that the UN’s upcoming vaccination drive covers all young children, said the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinians Philippe Lazzarini.

“It is not enough to bring the vaccines into Gaza and protect the cold chain,” said Lazzarini in a post on X. “To have an impact, the vaccines must end up in the mouths of every child under the age of 10.”

Lazzarini warned that polio, the first case of which was confirmed in Gaza last week, could spread among children, even outside the territory, without a quick humanitarian response.

“Polio will not make the distinction between Palestinian and Israeli children,” he said.


WHO director says Palestinian infant with polio has partial paralysis

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) says a Palestinian infant who has contracted polio, the first case in Gaza in a quarter-century, has developed partial paralysis.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X that the 10-month-old developed paralysis in the lower left leg and is in stable condition.

“I am gravely concerned,” he said.

Samples from the infected child were tested by the WHO and confirmed to be linked to the variant found in Gaza’s wastewater.

Given the high risk of its spread, the Geneva-based WHO is working with the Palestinian Health Ministry and UNICEF to launch two rounds of vaccinations at the end of August and September.

Polio vaccinations plunged after the war began on October 7, and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, which had been eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago.