War on Gaza: UN halts aid operations after Israeli ejection order
United Nations aid operations in Gaza were halted on Monday after an Israeli order forcibly ejected Palestinians from Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, where the UN's operation centre is located.
The order came as the UN prepared to begin a campaign to vaccinate around 640,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza against polio, days after a 10-month-old baby was paralysed by the type 2 poliovirus.
"We're unable to deliver today with the conditions that we're in," a senior UN official told Reuters. "As of this morning, we're not operating in Gaza."
"Where do we move now?" the official said, adding that staff were forced to move so quickly that equipment was left behind.
Despite the halt, the UN was not formally suspending aid operations.
"We're not leaving because the people need us there," the official said. "We're trying to balance the need of the population with the need for safety and security of the UN personnel."
The UN's main operations centre had formerly been in Rafah, in southern Gaza, until Israel ejected over a million Palestinians from the area earlier this year.
Gaza's resident have repeatedly stated that there are no so-called safe zones in the besieged strip, with Israel frequently targeting areas it had designated as humanitarian zones.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which operates differently from other UN bodies in Gaza, continued to deliver health and other services on Monday, but said it was facing serious challenges.
More than 200 Unrwa staff have been killed by Israeli forces.
"We are being squeezed into ever smaller areas of Gaza," Sam Rose, a senior field director at Unrwa told reporters.
"The humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk. It's now about 11 percent of the entire Gaza Strip. But this isn't 11 percent of land that is fit for habitation, fit for services, fit for life."
According to Unrwa, only three out of 18 water wells in Deir al-Balah were functioning, leading to an 85 percent water shortfall.
Rose said that over 3,000 people were set to work on the polio vaccination campaign, which is set to begin on Saturday. The case of the baby with type 2 polio was the first such case in Gaza in 25 years.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Monday that it had managed "to bring in only half of the 24,000 metric tonnes of food aid required for operations serving 1.1 million people".
Israeli forces have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the war began on 7 October, the majority of whom are women and children.
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