UN determined to deliver life-saving aid despite Israeli displacement orders

Only 11% of Gaza not under forced movement orders, Ocha says

A girl drinks from a bag of water next to humanitarian aid packages provided by the UNRWA in central Gaza. AFP

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The UN is determined to stay in Gaza to deliver life-saving aid despite Israeli displacement orders, a senior official said.

“Humanitarian aid delivery continues – a tremendous feat given that we are operating at the uppermost peripheries of tolerable risk,” Gilles Michaud, undersecretary general for safety and security, said in a statement.

UN humanitarian aid operations in the enclave were forced to stop on Monday after new displacement orders from Israel for Deir Al Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Mr Michaud said humanitarian workers have been in the crosshairs throughout the Gaza crisis, which was by far the deadliest on record for the UN.

He said the UN is running out of safe spaces for its own staff.

“This weekend the [Israeli military] gave just a few hours’ notice to move more than 200 UN personnel out of their offices and living places in Deir Al Balah, a crucial humanitarian hub,” Mr Michaud said.

“The timing could hardly be worse, with the start of a massive polio vaccination campaign scheduled for next week, for which large numbers of staff will need to enter the strip.”

The Israeli military orders to empty part of Deir Al Balah “immediately” sparked a rapid departure of civilians and a displacement of UN and NGO workers.

Israel said on Monday its military was looking for “terror operatives” in Deir Al Balah as it worked to dismantle the “remaining terrorist infrastructure” of Hamas.

The order affected 15 premises hosting UN and NGO aid workers, warehouses, a desalination plant and medical facilities, including Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, one of the few still operating in Gaza, the UN said.

Since the escalation of hostilities, only about 11 per cent of the Gaza Strip has not been under forced displacement, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

According to Ocha, between August 19 and 24, five new orders were issued by the Israeli military – “the largest number of orders in a single week since the start of the crisis”. A total of 16 have been in issued in August so far.

But the UN has insisted it will stay in Gaza.

“We need to find solutions,” a UN official said on Monday. “And if it means that we need to anchor down for 24 to 48 hours and reset, we do that. We're not leaving. Right now, the challenge is to find a place where we can reset and effectively operate.”

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, however, that the conditions in Gaza made it “extremely difficult” for the UN to do its work.

“We are doing what we can with what we have on board so to speak," Mr Dujarric said. "I don't want to use the term 'improvement'. I think we've been saying from the beginning, this is a delivery by seizing every opportunity, seizing every crack that we can fill.

“So every situation is assessed day by day, hour by hour, and we draw consequences from that conclusion.”

The latest developments came as UN agencies planned to conduct mass vaccinations after Gaza's first polio case in 25 years was discovered in recent weeks.