ROUGHLY A QUARTER of a million people have been affected by an evacuation order from the Israeli military around Khan Younis in Gaza, according to the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA said the order, which was issued yesterday, was “another devastating blow to the humanitarian response” in Gaza.

“We’ve seen people moving, families moving, people starting to pack up their belongings and try to leave this area,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.

The agency “estimates that around 250,000 people have been impacted by these orders”, she said, adding: “We expect these numbers to grow”.

Her comments came after the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for the Khan Younis area, where nine people were killed by Israeli bombing overnight, including three children and two women, according to Press Association reporters. 

The strike hit a home near the European Hospital, which is inside the zone that Israel said should be evacuated.

After the initial evacuation orders, the Israeli military (IDF) said the facility itself was not included, but its director says most patients and medics have already been relocated.

Witnesses reported intense bombing and shelling in the area around the main southern city in Gaza.

Some displaced people with nowhere to go were sleeping on the streets, witnesses said.

Ahmad Najjar, a resident of the town of Bani Suhaila, said the Israeli evacuation order had caused “a large displacement of residents” and spurred “fear and extreme anxiety”.

The IDF said it launched retaliatory strikes after Palestinian militants fired a barrage of some 20 projectiles into Israel from Khan Younis yesterday.

There were no reports of casualties or damage from the rocket attack.

People have also been forced to flee areas of Rafah in southern Gaza.

The 250,000 number was UNRWA’s estimate for the people in the area of new evacuation orders in eastern Khan Yunis, Wateridge told the AFP news agency.

“We expect that almost all of these people will move from this area,” she said, adding that the agency hoped to get a better idea later today of the numbers who have physically left.

“It’s another devastating blow for the people and the families on the ground. It seems that they are forcibly being displaced again, and again.”

She pointed out that following the start of the Rafah incursion in May, people had flooded back into the largely destroyed Khan Yunis area.

“And now already, because of the orders last night, the same families are having to move again,” she said.

Unexploded ordnance poses an enormous threat to people in #Gaza, as families are forced to move to areas that have been bombarded or were the scene of previous heavy fighting.

Children rummaging through rubble face terrible risks everyday. Nowhere is safe in Gaza. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/WUpVCSApU8

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 2, 2024

UNRWA has also warned today of the risks that unexploded bombs across the Gaza Strip pose yet another risk to people displaced by the bombardment and fighting.

“Children rummaging through rubble face terrible risks everyday. Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” the agency said in a post on X.  

Israel’s siege, bombardment and invasion of the Palestinian enclave that followed the Hamas-led attacks last October has now killed at least 37,925 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

‘Severe torture’

Yesterday, Israeli authorities released Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, along with dozens of other detainees returned to Gaza for treatment.

Abu Salmiya said he had suffered “severe torture” during his detention.

“Several inmates died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicine,” he said after his release.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the release had been made without his knowledge, and that Abu Salmiya belongs “in prison” because Israeli hostages were “murdered and held” in the hospital.

The director’s return to Gaza was “a serious mistake and a moral failure”, Netanyahu said.

According to Abu Salmiya, Israel brought no charges against him during his seven-month detention.

Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said the release was “to free up places in detention centres”.

Those sent back to Gaza “represent a lesser danger” and were not directly involved in attacks on Israeli civilians, it said.

With reporting from AFP and Press Association