UN says more than 737,000 newly displaced in Gaza since March amid Israeli strikes

​​​​​​​HAMILTON, Canada

The UN said Thursday that more than 737,000 people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip since an escalation of Israeli attacks in March, underscoring the scale of the humanitarian crisis facing the population.

Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay reported at a news conference that “between the 8th and the 15th of July, more than 11,500 people were newly displaced.”

“That brings overall displacement since the latest escalation of hostilities on March 18th to over 737,000 people – that’s about 35% of Gaza’s population. And over the past 21 months, nearly everyone has been displaced, typically multiple times,” she noted.

Tremblay said Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours hit sites sheltering displaced Palestinians, with reports of injuries and fatalities.

Despite mounting needs, she said that only a limited amount of humanitarian aid is reaching the enclave.

Tremblay described the delivery of benzene for the first time in more than 135 days as a “small but important step forward,” noting that benzene is essential for powering ambulances and critical services.

“But it’s not enough,” she stressed.

On the Israeli strike against a church in Gaza, Tremblay said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns today’s reports of an Israeli strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza, a place of worship and a sanctuary for civilians.”

“Attacks on places of worship are unacceptable. People seeking shelter must be respected and protected, not hit by strikes,” she added, reiterating demands for an immediate ceasefire.

She reiterated Guterres’ call “on all parties to ensure that civilians are respected and protected at all times and allow humanitarian aid to flow into the Strip at scale.”

In response to a question by Anadolu on Israel’s reported reassignment of administrative control of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to a settler council, Tremblay said the UN had not seen the report, but emphasized: “We always call for the protection of all religious sites.”

On Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Tel Aviv removed the Hebron municipality’s administrative authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque and reassigned it to a settler council.

The Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, is a site sacred to Muslims and Jews. Tensions over control and access have long made the mosque a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli move marks the first major shift in the status of the mosque since the 1994 recommendations of the Shamgar Commission, which divided access, allocating 63% of the site to Jewish worshippers and 37% to Muslims.

The division followed the 1994 massacre by extremist settler Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers during dawn prayers.

The mosque is located in the Old City in an area under full Israeli control where roughly 400 illegal settlers live under the protection of 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

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