Translated with AI
Residents of Gaza City continue to flee their homes en masse and head south of the Strip amid Israel's intensifying military operation, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on Tuesday.
According to the organization, many families have been forced to relocate several times, unable to provide food and water for their children. UNICEF representative Tess Ingram, based in the southern enclave, described the situation as a "mortal threat" for the region's most vulnerable residents.
"To expect nearly half a million children, exhausted and traumatised by more than 700 days of ongoing conflict, to leave one hell for another is inhumane," she said.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly 70,000 people have been displaced south in the past few days and approximately 150,000 in the past month. The only available evacuation route, the Al Rasheed road, is overloaded.
Ingram cited the example of a family who walked six hours from Gaza City with five children, two of whom were shoeless. She said they were being sent to a "so-called humanitarian zone" in the Al-Mawasi district, where conditions were dire: "a sea of makeshift tents and human despair."
UNICEF estimates that approximately 26,000 children in the Gaza Strip currently require treatment for malnutrition, more than 10,000 of whom live in Gaza City. In recent days, fighting and evacuation orders have led to the closure of several feeding centers, depriving many children of access to humanitarian aid.
The UN notes that the work of humanitarian organizations is being hampered by denials of missions and attacks. For example, last Sunday, out of 17 missions, only four were granted permission to conduct them.
According to a UNICEF representative, Gazans are faced with a choice: remain in the fighting zone or evacuate to areas that are equally unsafe. Ingram recalled that about two weeks ago, a shelling attack occurred in the Al-Mawasi neighborhood, killing eight children waiting for water.
