The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
STORYLINE
Gaza: Fresh evacuation orders compound misery for enclave’s displaced
New forced displacements have continued in Gaza as regional tensions escalate after a deadly strike in the Syrian Golan Heights where 12 youngsters were killed over the weekend, UN humanitarians have said.
Evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military have impacted Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, forcing families to relocate “again and again, knowing that safety is non-existent in the Gaza Strip”, said the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, in a post on X.
More than nine months into the war in Gaza, only 14 per cent of the enclave has not been impacted by evacuation orders, said UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini.
“Quite often, people have just a few hours to pack whatever they can and start all over again, mostly on foot or on a crowded donkey cart for those who can afford it,” he said. “Almost everyone in Gaza has been impacted by these orders. Many were forced to flee on average once a month since the war began nine months ago.”
In a related development, the UN agency condemned the reported destruction of a water plant in Rafah in southern Gaza, a focus of Israeli military action since early May. “Any time, something happens, like what appears to happen in Rafah over the weekend with a water plant destroyed, it impacts the ability we have to generate water,” said Scott Anderson – UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza. The UN agency has been unable to independently assess the situation, he noted.
Echoing the testimonies of forcibly displaced people who are among those assisted by UNRWA, Mr. Anderson recounted how one woman with twins explained the chaos of the upheaval: “She said, yeah, basically, that was one child for each arm and a little backpack, you know, and off they go to try to find safety.”
According to UNRWA, evacuation orders are now issued “every other day”, while UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported on Friday that humanitarian partners estimated that more than 190,000 Palestinians had been displaced last week in Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, since an evacuation order issued seven days ago.
Recent evacuation directives and intense hostilities have continued to destabilize aid operations and hampered efforts to provide critical relief to civilians in Khan Younis, OCHA noted.
It maintained that ongoing insecurity and the designation of “only one access point for the entry and exit of humanitarian staff into and out of Gaza – the Kerem Shalom crossing – have hampered efforts to deploy additional emergency medical teams in Gaza” – even though these workers are critically needed to help support the “exhausted” local health force.
“I met a mother and a child, a two-month-old who was starving to death and the mother didn't have sufficient nutrition to lactate and feed her baby,” Mr. Anderson said in an interview with UN News. He explained that “when you get to severe malnutrition or acute malnutrition, you can't just give milk or food and the baby will recover. You know, for a mother to start lactation again is nearly impossible…And they look at you and say, ‘What can you do to help me?’
Latest UN data indicates that 93 per cent of schools have been damaged and many have been directly hit in Gaza. A third of the affected schools are UNRWA schools whose approximately 14,000 teachers used to teach around 370,000 students. To help the hundreds of thousands of children now out of school in the enclave, UNRWA and the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, plan to provide an education boost beginning Thursday 1 August.
“We're going to try to get all the 600,000 children that should be in school back in some sort of learning environment,” Mr. Anderson said. “Hopefully this is the start of that process of rebuilding Gaza into something better than it was before 7 October and giving people, you know, the opportunity to continue to live in dignity.”
He added: “It's incredible that people still smile, that you see them trying to get on with their lives or some entrepreneurial spirit.”
ends
STORY: Gaza humanitarian update – UNWRA Scott Anderson
TRT: 2 min 12s
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 30 JULY 2024 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium: UN Geneva flag alley.
- Medium-wide: UNTV studio control room, guest speaker on TV screen, technician.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Scott Anderson – Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza: “Any time, something happens, like what appears to happen in Rafah over the weekend with a water plant destroyed, it impacts the ability we have to generate water. You know, unfortunately, we've not been in Rafah since 6 May, when the operation commenced because it's far too kinetic of an environment. It would take coordination with all the parties to the conflict for us to get there, so we can't go in and assess what has happened.”
- Medium: TV monitors showing Mr. Anderson.
- Medium-close: laptop screen showing Mr. Anderson during Zoom interview.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Scott Anderson – Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza: “Displacement is a very sterile sound, right, it sounds very orderly and neat. It's anything but that, it's very chaotic, it's very frightening for people. And often they only can take whatever they can carry. I met one woman who had twins, and she said, yeah, basically, that was one child for each arm and a little backpack, you know, and off they go to try to find safety.”
- Close, audio meter.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Scott Anderson – Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza: “I met a mother and a child, a two-month-old who was starving to death and the mother didn't have sufficient nutrition to lactate and feed her baby. And when you get to, severe malnutrition or acute malnutrition, you can't just give milk or food and the baby will recover. You know, for a mother to start lactation again is nearly impossible…And they look at you and say, ‘What can you do to help me?’And the answer is nothing.”
- Medium: UNTV studio technician.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Scott Anderson – Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza: “It's incredible that people still smile, that you see them trying to get on with their lives or some entrepreneurial spirit.”
- Medium, screens showing Mr. Anderson speaking.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Scott Anderson – Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza: “On 1 August with UNICEF and other partners, we're going to try to get all the 600,000 children that should be in school back in some sort of learning environment. It'll take a while, but it's a worthwhile endeavour. And hopefully this is the start of that process of rebuilding Gaza into something better than it was before 7 October and giving people, you know, the opportunity to continue to live in dignity.”
- Close, laptop screen showing Mr. Anderson.
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | UNWOMEN
Aid agencies echoed wider warnings of growing signs of widespread starvation in Gaza on Tuesday, as UN-partnered international food security experts released their most dire assessment yet of the situation in the wartorn enclave.
1
1
1
Edited News | IOM , UNDP , UNHCR
Sudan: urgent help needed as more than 1.3 million war-displaced people begin to return home
As conflict rages on across parts of Sudan, pockets of relative safety have emerged in the past four month, spurring more than one million internally displaced Sudanese to make their way home, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A further 320,000 cross-border refugees have come back to Sudan since last year, mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, to assess the current situation before deciding to return to their country for good.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA , WHO
Gaza: SOS messages describe people fainting from hunger; UN health worker detained
Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in Gaza who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNHCR , UNOG
Over 11.6 million refugees risk losing aid access due to funding cuts, says UNHCR
Approximately one in three refugees and other vulnerable individuals normally supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) are expected to lose out from funding cuts, it said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the following announcement on the Office’s opening of a new mission in Bangladesh.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
“The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday called for accountability and justice for the killings and other gross human rights violations and abuses in the southern city of Suweida.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNHCR
Syria: hundreds killed in Sweida, ‘widespread’ violations as civilians flee for their lives
Amid violent clashes in southern Syria’s Sweida governorate, a picture of grave human rights abuses and rising humanitarian needs is emerging by the hour, the UN said on Friday.
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva the UN Human Rights Spokesperson Liz Throssell made the following statement on the latest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called for investigations into hundreds of killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces and settlers, warning against ongoing forced mass displacement of the Palestinian population.
1
1
2
Edited News | OHCHR , UNRWA
Nearly 900 people have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks trying to fetch food, with most deaths linked to private aid hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the UN Human Rights Office have today released a report detailing the evolution of violent gang incidents beyond the capital Port-au-Prince since October 2024 up to June 2025, and the resulting loss of life and mass displacement.