The UN's Lazzarini said the world should not be 'in tears' after Israeli attacks killed nearly 50 Palestinians in 24 hours.
Israel hit Gaza overnight with deadly attacks on people evacuated from two camps and a school, while ordering the evacuation of one of the last non-functioning hospitals in the besieged north.
The military launched attacks on so-called “safe havens” a al-Mawasi In the south, a drone attack set fire to refugee tents that killed seven people, and bombed a civilian car and a security vehicle to kill four others.
In a separate attack, the military targeted a school that had become homeless Nuseiras refugee camp in central Gaza, killing one person. It also killed four people in an area north of the camp, according to Al Jazeera Arabic and the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
The attacks continued for 24 hours in the Strip, where medical sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that 50 people had been killed since early Sunday.
As the attacks continued, the military ordered a shutdown and forced people to evacuate Kamal Advan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, endangering about 400 civilians, including babies in incubators.
The hospital is one of the few still operating in the north, where thousands of people have been under siege for three months.
Wafa said on Sunday that the Israeli army has been targeting the hospital with bombs, gunshots and bullets, mainly hitting the rooms of mothers, mothers, and babies, killing three people.
The head of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safia, told Reuters that the army was directly targeting oil tanks, which could “cause a huge explosion and kill civilians inside”.
Obeying the order to close down was “impossible” because there were not enough ambulances to evacuate patients, he said.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said: “We are in a place where the shelters are not safe for the refugees, not the al-Mawasi shelter, not the schools, not lodgings, even hospitals.”
“We're seeing areas that have been picked over and over again over the last month,” he said. “What we're seeing right now shows the insecurity of … desperate, displaced people in these places.”
Charity Oxfam reported on Sunday that Israeli authorities have allowed only 12 vehicles into northern Gaza in the past two and a half months.
“Deliberate delays and systematic blockades” by the army meant that only 12 of the 34 vehicles allowed to enter the area managed to distribute aid to the starving Palestinians.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN refugee agency for Palestine, said on Sunday that there has been an “increase” in the Israeli war on Gaza in the last 24 hours.
In X's letters, he reiterated his call for an end to the war, saying “the world should not be numb”.
#Gaza
The rise in the last 24 hours.
Dozens of civilians are reported to have been killed and injured.Attacks on schools and hospitals have become common.
The world doesn't have to be numb.All wars have rules
All these laws have been broken.The end of the war was delayed
A…— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 22, 2024