A destroyed UNRWA building in Gaza City. Gaza: Evacuation from Khan Yunis exacerbates aid shortages Peace and Security
Following the evacuation order, some 150,000 people fled Khan Yunis in one day, exacerbating shortages of food, water and shelter. UN humanitarian workers warn about this.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since October 7, about 1.9 million people – nine out of 10 residents of Gaza – have been forced to flee their homes, many of them multiple times.
But fuel shortages continue to undermine humanitarian operations and threaten health, water and food production facilities, according to a new report from the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA).
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According to UNRWA, 674 trucks entered the enclave in 3 weeks of July, compared to 1,300 for the whole of June.
According to the UN, between July 1 and July 21, just over 2.1 million liters of fuel entered Gaza, which is about 103 thousand liters of fuel per day, or a quarter of the 400 thousand liters estimated to be needed daily to support humanitarian operations in the enclave.
UNRWA noted that a number of problems, including the breakdown of law and order, are preventing the collection of necessary humanitarian supplies from the Kerem crossing -Shalom in southern Gaza.
Arrests of Palestinian activists
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, said on Wednesday that Israeli authorities “continue to target human rights defenders” in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
In particular, Omar al -Khatib and Diala Ayesh were arrested between October 2023 and March 2024, she said, calling for their immediate release. In her statement, Lawlor said al-Khatib campaigned against the forced eviction of Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, while Ayesh, a human rights lawyer, documented the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
They and three other activists were reportedly beaten, humiliated, moved from one prison to another within a day or two, and forced to sign documents in Hebrew, which they did not understand, Lawlor claims.
“All five human rights defenders were arrested without a warrant. They were not given any reasons for the arrest. All of them were interrogated without the presence of a lawyer. They were not allowed contact with their families,” she said. The independent expert was appointed by the Human Rights Council and is not a UN official.
Death and Destruction
According to media reports , Four Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
Between July 15 and July 21, UNRWA recorded at least 169 Israeli security force operations in the West Bank. More than 110 Palestinians were detained during this period, and three cases of killings of Palestinians were documented, the UNRWA report said.
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International Court of Justice: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory must end immediately
After On July 19, the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice was published, and there were reports of attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian communities in Huwara and Burin in the north and in Masafer Yatta in the south of the West Bank, the UN agency noted.
According to the latest OCHA data, more than 820 Palestinian-owned structures have been demolished in the West Bank since the beginning of the year. At this rate of destruction, a record 1,400 buildings could be demolished by the end of the year, surpassing the previous high of 1,177 in 2023.