69 per cent of Gaza under Israeli displacement orders: UN agency

Gaza, April 21 (IANS) The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that 69 per cent of the Gaza Strip is under active Israeli displacement orders.

The Israeli army issued at least 20 displacement orders between March 18 and April 14, UNRWA said in a press statement on Sunday, adding that the agency "currently operates 115 shelters across Gaza, housing more than 90,000 displaced people."

Some 420,000 people have been displaced again since the ceasefire collapsed on March 18, it said, warning that the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening due to Israeli shelling and the seven-week-long aid blockade.

UNRWA stressed the need for an early ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies into Gaza, Xinhua news agency reported.

Israel has blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2. It then ended a two-month ceasefire with Hamas on March 18 and resumed deadly air and ground assaults on the enclave.

Meanwhile, at least 29 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza on Sunday, according to the Civil Defence in Gaza.

In central Gaza, 10 people were killed and some others wounded by an Israeli airstrike on a residential house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defence, told Xinhua.

In southern Gaza, a Palestinian woman was killed and four others wounded in an Israeli drone attack on a tent housing displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis city, and four others were killed in another two separate Israeli attacks on the city, Basal said.

The renewed Israeli attacks have so far killed 1,827 Palestinians and injured 4,828 others, Gaza health authorities said Sunday, adding the death toll in the enclave since the war began in October 2023 has risen to 51,201, with 116,869 injured.

--IANS

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