UN says 86 percent of Gaza now under Israeli evacuation orders

The United Nations says 86 percent of the besieged Gaza Strip is now under Israeli evacuation orders as 33 more Palestinians are killed in yet another day of attacks and displacement.

Thousands of Palestinians fled the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza on Monday after the Israeli army issued new evacuation orders.

“We have been displaced from the north. They told us: ‘Leave to central Gaza, then to Rafah.’ We went to Rafah, then went back up to Nuseirat. We got stuck. Then we received instructions to move farther south towards al-Mawasi,” Mohammed Naserallah, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera.

“Our life is in pieces. We have nothing, no one but God.”

Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said 86 percent of the besieged enclave is under evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military.

Kahder Baroud, a blind Palestinian man wearing black sunglasses, said he received a call from the Israeli army to leave his house in Nuseirat on Sunday.

“We are already struggling with our situation because my daughters and sons are also blind. … We live in fear, in frightening circumstances. We left home today [Monday], but we don’t know where we can go now,” he said.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, also in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said recurrent mass displacements have become the norm with the Israeli military.

“The majority of the displaced population is flowing to the Deir el-Balah city that is already packed with displaced families and has no sufficient space or resources to accommodate people,” he said.

In addition, schools that have been turned into shelters for the displaced have been targeted.

“The attacks on schools in the past two days have shattered any sense of safety left for people staying in evacuation centres and has pushed people into further internal enforced displacement. There is literally no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

Meanwhile, at least three people were killed and others wounded when the Israeli army again bombarded al-Mawasi, an area in southern Gaza previously declared a “safe zone” by Israel.

Officials in Gaza said 33 Palestinians were killed across the enclave on Monday while the overall deaths since October were reported at 39,363 with more than 90,000 others wounded.

An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.

‘Polio endemic area’

The relentless Israeli offensive has also worsened Gaza’s health emergency as its Ministry of Health on Monday declared it a “polio endemic area”.

In a statement on Telegram, the ministry said the situation “poses a health threat to the residents of Gaza and neighbouring countries”.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also confirmed the spread of the life-threatening polio virus, detecting it in sewage samples. Already scarce supplies of drinking water in the densely populated Gaza Strip are at risk of being contaminated by the virus.

“This is only the start of the wave of diseases the Gaza Strip is going to face,” Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said, reporting from Deir-el Balah.

“Palestinians have been living in makeshift tents without any bathrooms, without any hygiene, without access to water, sanitation. Sewage is everywhere,” she said.

On Friday, the WHO said it was sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children from being infected.

Israel’s military also said it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers in Gaza.

Also on Monday, Israel and Hamas traded blame over the lack of progress in reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Gaza Strip despite international mediation.

Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of adding new conditions and demands to a United States-backed truce proposal.

Netanyahu, however, denied making any changes and said Hamas was the one insisting on numerous changes to the original proposal.