A UN official is warning thousands of people could be displaced as Israel ordered Palestinians to flee Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.
Briefing reporters on Wednesday from Jerusalem, Andrea De Domenico, Head of Office for UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said his agency was closely monitoring the situation.
“We have seen, constant flow of people moving out. And it’s very difficult for us to be on the ground in all places trying to monitor the different patterns and be more precise in terms of the number of people that currently are moving,” De Domenico said.
The Israeli army ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians from much of Khan Younis on Monday, a sign that troops are likely to launch a new ground assault into the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city.
The order suggests Khan Younis will be the latest target of Israel’s raids into parts of Gaza it had previously invaded in the war, as it pursues regrouping Hamas militants.
Much of Khan Younis was destroyed in a long assault earlier this year, but large numbers of Palestinians had moved back to escape another Israeli offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah.
Additional sources • AP
