UN aid operations in Gaza halt after Israel evacuation orders

United Nations aid operations in Gaza ground to a halt yesterday after Israel issued new evacuation orders on Sunday for Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip where the UN operations centre was located, said a senior UN official.
The evacuation order came as the UN prepares to begin on Saturday a campaign to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the World Health Organisation (WHO) said a 10-month-old baby had been paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
“We’re unable to deliver today with the conditions that we’re in,” said the senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “As of this morning, we’re not operating in Gaza.”
The United Nations had relocated its main operations centre for the Gaza Strip and most UN personnel to Deir Al-Balah, the official said, after Israel ordered the evacuation of Rafah in the south of Gaza several months ago. “Where do we move now?” said the official, adding that UN staff had to be moved so quickly that equipment was left behind.
The Israeli military’s humanitarian unit (COGAT) did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The senior UN official said UN staff on the ground had been directed to try and find a way to keep operating. He said UN operations had not been formally suspended.
“We’re not leaving (Gaza) because the people need us there,” the official said. “We’re trying to balance the need of the population with the need for safety and security of the UN personnel.” Sam Rose, a senior field director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said UNRWA was still managing to deliver health and other services yesterday, but noted that while UNRWA operated differently to the rest of the UN system it still faced the same challenges. “We are being squeezed into ever smaller areas of Gaza,” he told reporters yesterday. “The humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk. It’s now about 11% of the entire Gaza Strip. But this isn’t 11% of land that is fit for habitation, fit for services, fit for life.”
Israel’s military has levelled swathes of the Palestinian enclave, driving nearly all of its 2.3mn people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing at least 40,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
“The humanitarian response here is being completely strangled and limiting our ability of what we can do,” said Louise Wateridge, spokesperson for UNRWA in Gaza, yesterday.
The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza – Israel inspects and approves all trucks – and says it is also struggling to distribute aid amid “total lawlessness” within the enclave of 2.3mn people, where a global hunger monitor last month said there is a high risk of famine.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) said yesterday that in the past two months it “managed to bring in only half of the 24,000 metric tonnes of food aid required for operations serving 1.1mn people.” WFP said it was hampered by worsening conflict, a limited number of border crossings and damaged roads.
Rose said that more than 3,000 people would work on the polio vaccination campaign that was due to start on Saturday. “Over 1000 of them drawn from from UNRWA, which is essentially the largest primary health care provider left in the Gaza Strip. The vaccines have come in. We’re calling for calm. We’re calling for humanitarian pauses,” he said.