Nearly Two Million Crowd Into Gaza’s South as Fighting Intensifies

Since the end of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in early December, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has deepened, with evacuation orders and intense fighting squeezing civilians into an ever-shrinking area.

On Friday, the Israeli military again ordered civilians to move south immediately, this time out of an area in central Gaza that was home to almost 90,000 people before the war. At least 60,000 displaced people, most of whom had fled from northern Gaza, had been sheltering there.

Gazans are struggling without sanitation, food or water. More than 1.7 million displaced people are registered in shelters in the south, including a few hundred thousand people who cannot fit within their walls and are sleeping along roads and in open spaces.

Many people have followed Israel’s evacuation orders, but doing so has not brought safety. Israeli bombing, which was relentless during the first six weeks of the war, has continued across the south since the end of the cease-fire, including in areas to which people were told to move.

Damage from airstrikes and fighting has been identified near almost every shelter in Gaza’s three southern regions this month, an analysis of satellite imagery and relief agency data shows. In some cases, shelters have been hit directly.

The United Nations relief agency in Gaza estimates that at least 299 displaced people have been killed in its shelters across Gaza since the start of the war, with 81 deaths reported since Nov. 30.

The Israeli military has said it is taking precautions to mitigate civilian harm as it works to defeat Hamas, and that evacuation orders are intended to move civilians out of the areas with the fiercest fighting. It has said that Hamas built an extensive tunnel network to shield its fighters and weapons, putting civilian infrastructure and people above the tunnels in the line of fire.

But as Israel’s ground campaign broadens in southern Gaza, more people are being told to move into areas that cannot provide them shelter, the head of the U.N. relief agency in Gaza said on Saturday. Data on people registered at U.N. shelters since the war began shows where people have fled, and in some cases have fled again.

Rafah is now Gaza’s most densely populated area, according to U.N. officials. Data shows that U.N. shelters in Rafah host an average of more than 15,000 registered people each, though most shelters were designed for just 2,000.

The region is not equipped to provide basic services to the displaced, relief organization officials say. Its three hospitals are only partly functional, and people in shelters live in cramped conditions with little food or water. Nearly 500 people on average share a single toilet.

Deir al Balah has also seen an enormous influx of the displaced. But, unlike Rafah, where some limited aid has arrived from Egypt, Deir al Balah and its northern neighbor, Khan Younis, have had little or no access to aid in recent days because of continued attacks.

Among the nearly 100 U.N. shelters in southern Gaza, only a handful in Khan Younis have seen significant declines in population. Some are within areas that have been evacuated, and that have seen intense fighting in recent weeks.

Satellite imagery has shown Israeli military vehicles positioned just blocks away from three evacuated shelters in Khan Younis. On Dec. 5, 17,000 people were living in those shelters. By Dec. 12, they were almost completely empty.

The U.N. shares initial reports of damage to shelters and injuries to residents almost daily. For example, fighting on Dec. 17 injured three children in a Khan Younis school after a wall was directly struck. Strikes near another Khan Younis shelter that day killed two Palestinians and injured several others, the agency said.

More than 50 U.N. school buildings in the south have been damaged since the start of the war, according to UNICEF, which relies on reports from other organizations on the ground. Most of these buildings were still housing displaced people as of mid-December.

Relief officials say that it has been difficult to track Gaza’s nearly two million displaced people, many of whom have moved in and out of shelters and the homes of others since the start of the war.

It is even harder to count those who remain in the north, where Israel first launched its attacks and where access has been restricted. A preliminary estimate from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics suggested that as many as 500,000 people might have remained there as of early December.

Without a new cease-fire, relief officials expect that homeless Gazans in the south will face repeated displacement in the weeks to come. And those who have not yet fled their homes are likely to be displaced as attacks continue.