Displaced inside prison: UNRWA says 1.9m Gazans forced out of homes by war

The UN Palestinian refugee agency says since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza in early October almost 1.9 million have been internally displaced.

While obtaining an accurate figure of the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) remains challenging, nearly 85 percent of the population is estimated to be forcibly displaced, UNRWA said in a report on Monday.

The report added it was “the largest forced displacement of Palestinians” since the Nakba or “Catastrophe” when more than 700,000 Palestinians were evicted from their lands as Israel was created in 1948.

“Conditions in Gaza are catastrophic. Under relentless bombardment, thousands of civilians have been killed, the majority of them women and children,” UNRWA, which has already lost a record 136 staff in the Israeli war, said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also said in a report released on Monday that since December 3 tens of thousands of IDPs, who have arrived in Rafah governorate, continue to face “extremely overcrowded” conditions both inside and outside shelters.

“With an estimated fourfold increase in population density, exceeding 12,000 people per square kilometer, Rafah governorate is now the most densely populated area in the Gaza Strip,” the report said.

It added that nearly 1.4 million of these IDPs are registered in 155 UNRWA facilities across Gaza, including more than 1.2 million in 98 UNRWA shelters in the Middle Area, Khan Younis, and Rafah governorates.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 19,400 Palestinians and injured more than 52,000 others.

Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza, which is under “complete siege” by Israel.

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According to UNRWA, the entire population of Gaza is being denied basic needs.

“An entire population of 2.2 million people are being denied food, water, medical supplies, and other basics of survival, as diseases loom large.”

UNRWA reiterated its call for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and an “unimpeded, sustainable” passage of humanitarian aid for people in need.

The UN agency said the “humanitarian tragedy” unleashed in Gaza by Israel’s strikes and complete siege served as the “starkest illustration of the failure” to implement human rights fully for Palestinians.  

“The human rights we acknowledge today for all human beings must be respected and protected for Palestinians,” it added.

The UN agency noted that the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza has cast a long shadow over the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was marked last week.

“Human rights apply to everyone, without distinction, whoever they are and wherever they are. But for Palestine Refugees the promise of universal rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has rarely seemed so distant, and the challenges to realizing these rights seldom so daunting,” Stephanie Case, chief of the Protection Division at UNRWA, said.

“It is disregard for human rights that has led us to where we are today. Adherence to human rights is crucial for an alternative future where stability, peace, and justice prevail.”

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