Gaza war: UN hopes for new Western Erez aid crossing

Part of the UN’s operations in Gaza throughout the war has been to survey displaced Palestinians who are on the move, and track those who say they do not have access to food and water.

Unrwa is currently tracking some 370,000 Palestinians in Gaza, Mr Anderson said.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have heeded Israel’s warnings to evacuate eastern Rafah and have begun their journey to what Israel has called an “expanded humanitarian zone”.

This includes al-Mawasi, a coastal area largely made up of sand dunes, and parts of Khan Younis, which only recently was the focus of Israel’s operations in Gaza.

Mr Anderson said neither area had the infrastructure to support the masses seeking shelter.

In al-Mawasi, “everything people have access to, we have to truck in… which includes food, water, moving solid waste, so it’s very much a makeshift camp,” he said.

“People who are displacing to Khan Younis, it’s very similar – there was infrastructure there, but that is still recovering from the Israeli operation that took place a few months ago.”

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 252 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

More than 34,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.