The number of people displaced in the Gaza Strip due to the war between the Palestinian movement Hamas and Israel has risen to more than 187,000 people, the United Nations announced on Tuesday.
In 24 hours, the UN registered an increase of more than 64,000 displaced people in the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli bombardment since Saturday following Hamas attacks in Israel.
Of the total number of displaced people, approximately 137,500 are sheltered in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
UNRWA representatives said conditions in the agency’s facilities in the Gaza Strip are extremely precarious and drinking water supplies are very limited, according to Spanish agency EFE.
Israel announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people, which was deemed illegal by the United Nations.
“Imposing sieges that endanger the lives of civilians and deprive them of goods essential to their survival is prohibited by international humanitarian law,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
Turk recalled in a statement that “any restriction on the movement of people and goods to carry out a siege must be justified by military necessity, otherwise it could amount to collective punishment.”
He also said he was “deeply shocked and outraged by allegations of summary executions of civilians and, in some cases, horrific massacres committed by members of Palestinian armed groups.”
He called on Palestinian groups to “immediately and unconditionally release all captured and detained civilians.”
“Taking hostages is prohibited by international law,” Turk said in a statement released in Geneva, Switzerland, quoted by French agency AFP.
Turk also said that, according to information available to his services, the bombing by Israeli forces in Gaza caused “civilian casualties.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced on Monday the imposition of a total siege on the Gaza Strip, following the offensive launched from this Palestinian territory by the Islamist movement Hamas against Israel.
“There’s no electricity, there’s no water, there’s no gas,” Gallant said.
The Gaza Strip is an area 41 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide, located between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
It is a densely populated, poverty-stricken area that has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since 2007.
About 80 percent of Gaza’s population depends on international aid and about a million people depend on daily food aid, according to UN data cited by British television BBC.
It was from the Gaza Strip that the Islamic group Hamas’ unprecedented attacks on Israel since Saturday began, resulting in more than 900 deaths.
According to Palestinian authorities, Israel’s military response caused the deaths of nearly 700 people in Gaza.
Source: DN
