UN official says roughly 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced by Israel-Hamas war

Successive evacuation orders throughout the Gaza Strip, including 12 orders in August alone, have displaced roughly 90 percent of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the top United Nations humanitarian official for the Palestinian enclave says.

Muhannad Hadi accuses the evacuation orders of endangering civilians instead of protecting them.

“They are forcing families to flee again, often under fire and with the few belongings they can carry with them, into an ever-shrinking area” that is crowded and unsafe, he charges.

According to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, recent evacuation orders have meant that the UN’s World Food Program has lost access to its warehouse in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.

“This was the third and last operational warehouse in Gaza’s middle area,” Dujarric says. “Five community kitchens operated by WFP have also been evacuated, as the agency seeks new locations for them.”

The size of Gaza’s humanitarian zone has changed multiple times in recent months amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group.

The zone is currently around 42 square kilometers, or 11% of the total size of the Gaza Strip. According to IDF estimates, some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the zone.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.