Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians without shelter in Rafah, says UN official

Gaza, Dec 9: The United Nations on Saturday said that tens of thousands of Palestinians flocking into Rafah, a city in Gaza Strip, are facing overcrowding and need shelters.
Most of them came from the neighboring Khan Younis city, following evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces and the continued bombing and fighting, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as saying. Those newly displaced people face severe overcrowding in Rafah, with no empty space for shelter, not even in the streets or other open areas.
“Thousands of displaced people set up temporary structures and tents in a Qatari Field hospital under construction and the Al-Quds Open University campus in Rafah,” the agency added.
For many Palestinians, this is the second or third displacement they have experienced since the start of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip on October 7.
According to the UN, it is estimated that about 1.9 million people in Gaza, or approximately 85 per cent of the population, are internally displaced. Nearly 1.2 million of these displaced people have been registered in 151 facilities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) throughout the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, Israel has been launching massive airstrikes and a ground offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Israel.
UN chief is biased, says
Israel Foreign Minister
Israel Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Saturday hit out at United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, accusing him of standing with Palestinian terror group Hamas in his appeal before the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In a post on X, Cohen said Guterres’ call “disgraces his position and constitutes a mark of Cain on the UN.”
“The invocation of Article 99, after it was not used for the war in Ukraine or for the civil war in Syria, is another example of Guterres’ biased and one-sided stance,’ Cohen wrote. (IANS)