The commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, has warned that at least 400,000 people are essentially “trapped” in northern Gaza, where there is “no end to hell” because there is nowhere safe in the territory to flee to.

He said many people in Northern Gaza, particularly in the Jabalia refugee camp, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic urban refugee camps, are now refusing to comply with Israeli evacuation orders telling them to go southward.

The Israeli army has surrounded Jabalia since Sunday, as well as other nearby neighbourhoods, ordering residents to flee towards the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, even though it has been targeted in deadly Israeli airstrikes and is severely overcrowded.

The Israeli military claims its forces are in Jabalia to fight Hamas militants, dismantle military infrastructure and prevent Hamas from regrouping.

In a post on X, Lazzarini added:

Unrwa shelters + services are being forced to shut. Some for the first time since the war began. With almost no basic supplies available, hunger is spreading & deepening again.

This recent military operation also threatens the implementation of the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign for children. Children are as ever, the first & most to suffer. They deserve so much better, they deserve a ceasefire now, they deserve a future.

(Source: The Guardian)