Displaced Palestinians not guaranteed safety anywhere in Gaza, says UN official
Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated territory, a UN humanitarian team leader has said.
Gemma Connell, deployed in Gaza for several weeks now, described what she called a “human chessboard” in which thousands of people – displaced many times already – are on the run again and there is no guarantee a destination will be safe, Reuters reports.
Early on Tuesday, Palestinian residents reported several airstrikes near Nasser hospital, southern Gaza’s largest medical facility, in Khan Younis. Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city.
Connell said on Monday:
People were heading up south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans and in trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe.
Connell’s comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the offensive in Gaza “isn’t close to finished” and that “we are expanding the fight in the coming days”.
Connell, a team leader for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs who on Monday visited the Deir al-Balah neighbourhood in central Gaza, said:
I’ve spoken to many people. There’s so little space left here in Rafah that people just don’t know where they will go and it really feels like people being moved around a human chessboard because there’s an evacuation order somewhere.
People flee that area into another area. But they’re not safe there.
Asked for the army’s response, a spokesperson said the military had sought to evacuate civilians from areas of fighting but Hamas systematically attempted to prevent that effort. The army spokesperson said Hamas used civilians as human shields, an accusation the group denies.
Key events
Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war on this 26 December. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a snapshot of the latest developments at it turns 7.50am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv.
Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated territory, a UN humanitarian team leader in Gaza has said.
Gemma Connell described a “human chessboard” in which thousands of people – displaced many times already – are on the run again and with no guarantee that any destination will be safe.
Her comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the offensive in Gaza “isn’t close to finished” and that “we are expanding the fight in the coming days”.
Early on Tuesday, Palestinian residents reported several airstrikes near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, while Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the city.
More on those stories soon. In other news:
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Israeli airstrikes killed more than 100 Palestinians overnight to Monday in Gaza, health officials in the Hamas-run territory said. Twenty-three were killed in Khan Younis, medics said, while the territory’s health ministry said at least 70 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike targeting Maghazi in central Gaza. Associated Press reported later that at least 106 were killed in the attack on the Maghazi refugee camp. Eight people were killed as Israeli planes and tanks carried out dozens of airstrikes on houses and roads in al-Bureij and al-Nuseirat, health officials said.
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Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad have rejected an Egyptian plan proposing that they give up power in the Gaza Strip in return for a permanent ceasefire, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters. Both groups, which have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, rejected offering any concessions beyond the possible release of more of the hostages seized on 7 October.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) says Israel “will pay” for killing one of its commanders, Iranian state TV reports. The Tasnim news agency and Reuters said earlier that an airstrike killed Sayyed Razi Mousavi outside Syria’s capital, Damascus. He was an IRGC member responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran. The IRGC described Mousavi as a brigadier general who was one of their oldest advisers in Syria. The Israeli military declined to comment on the reports.
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Israeli strikes have killed 20,674 people and injured 54,536 in Gaza since 7 October, the territory’s health ministry said. It said on Monday that 250 Palestinians had been killed and 500 injured over the past 24 hours.
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The Israeli prime minister has vowed to expand the Gaza operation, saying the war “isn’t close to finished” and will take a long time. Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed what he cast as false media speculation that his government might call a halt to fighting against Hamas. “We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight, and we will be intensifying the fighting in the coming days, and the fighting will take long and it is not close to concluding,” he told legislators from his Likud party, according to a statement. Separately, Netanyahu told Israel’s parliament that Israel would not succeed in freeing the remaining hostages held in Gaza without military pressure.
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Family members of hostages taken by Hamas heckled Netanyahu during a special session of parliament. They shouted “there is no time” and “now, now, now” while holding posters and signs with the names and photos of their relatives. The prime minister said he would “shake every tree and turn every stone to bring back all the kidnapped”.
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The World Health Organisation said it led missions to barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza at the weekend, describing growing desperation and starving people stripping an aid vehicle of supplies. The UN health agency and its partners delivered aid, including fuel, to the al-Shifa hospital, once Gaza’s biggest and most advanced medical facility, the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said late on Sunday on X (formerly Twitter). The mission on 23 December witnessed “rising desperation due to acute hunger”, he said.
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Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, has accused the UN of “hypocrisy” and ordered his ministry not to extend one UN employee’s entry visa and to refuse entry for another.
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Pope Francis said in his Christmas message that Israeli strikes in Gaza were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians and that was pleading for an end to the military operations. The pontiff called “for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid” as he spoke to thousands of people gathered at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
