The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) condemned Israel’s plan to forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza towards the southern city of Rafah, warning that the move would create “massive concentration camps” and worsen the humanitarian crisis.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA's director of communications, told Al Jazeera English that the agency “categorically refuses any forced displacement of any population.”
“If it happens, it will push further tens of thousands of people who have already been displaced many, many times during this current war but also over the generations, further south and from there into the unknown,” Touma said.
“What needs to happen right now is to focus on reaching a ceasefire and allowing UNRWA to bring in much-needed supplies,” she said.
Touma said UNRWA has “over 6,000 trucks in Egypt and Jordan full of medicines that are soon expiring, food that is also going off, we have hygiene supplies.”
“All we are saying is lift the siege, get a ceasefire, allow UNRWA and other UN organizations to do our work,” she added.
“Humanitarian city”
Earlier, the UN raised alarm over continued mass displacement in Gaza and warned that more than 700,000 people have been uprooted since the end of the ceasefire in March.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the army to prepare a plan to relocate all Palestinians to what he called a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, killing nearly 57,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and led to food shortages and a spread of disease.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
