UN humanitarians expressed deep concern on Friday for civilians in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s order for the population there to leave the north, amid ongoing airstrikes and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

The UN representatives in Gaza on Thursday were informed by their liaison officers in the Israeli military that everyone living north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within 24 hours.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that some 1.1 million people would be expected to leave northern Gaza, adding that the same order applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics.

The UN considers it “impossible” for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences and appeals for the order to be rescinded.

Echoing that message, the World Health Organisation (WHO) joined the call for Israel to rescind the relocation order, saying it amounted to a “death sentence” for many.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told journalists in Geneva, that in line with the assessment of health authorities there, it would be “impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients from the north of Gaza”.

The UN also reiterated its calls for the immediate release of hostages held in Gaza following Hamas’s deadly Saturday attack on Israel, and for the protection of civilians and urgent aid access to the sealed-off enclave, as UN chief António Guterres and his envoys continued their diplomatic efforts.

UN humanitarians joined their voices to these calls on Friday, urging the parties to save civilian lives.

UN relief chief Martin Griffiths, tweeted that “the noose around the civilian population in Gaza is tightening”, asking how such a huge number of people could possibly move across a “densely populated warzone” in just 24 hours.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), warned that the relocation order “will only lead to unprecedented levels of misery and further push people in Gaza into the abyss.”

He said that over 423,000 people across the enclave have already been displaced, of whom more than 270,000 have taken refuge in UNRWA shelters.

UNRWA tweeted on Friday that Gaza was “fast becoming a hell hole and is on the brink of collapse. There is no exception, all parties must uphold the laws of war.”

Briefing journalists in Geneva, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder regretted that the humanitarian situation had now reached “lethal lows”.

He highlighted that the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on the planet and people, including hundreds of thousands of children, are finding themselves “with nowhere safe to go”.

OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke also underscored the impossibility of a relocation, asking, “in the middle of a war zone where people are already at the end of the rope, how is that going to happen?”

He also insisted on the urgency of humanitarian access to Gaza as all supplies were rapidly depleting.

“We’re pretty much locked out,” he said.

On Thursday, the UN launched a flash appeal for $294 million for 77 humanitarian partners to address the most urgent needs of 1.26 million people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“This is a response to an escalation that has put civilians in a situation in which they should never be,” Mr Laerke said about the appeal, adding that “The most urgent priority is now to de-escalate.”

WHO’s Jašarević insisted that the health system in Gaza is at a “breaking point”.

The two major hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, the Indonesian Hospital and Shifa Hospital, have already exceeded their combined 760-bed capacity and the hospitals in the south of Gaza were also “overflowing”.

Six of the seven main hospitals in Gaza are only partially functioning, he added.

He stressed that moving vulnerable patients such as those critically injured and adults, children and newborns depending on life support in intensive care, would be a “death sentence”.

“Asking health workers to do so is beyond cruel,” he said.

Also, UN human rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani insisted yet again that civilians “must never be used as bargaining chips”.

She called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of hostages and their humane treatment.

OHCHR urged Palestinian armed groups to “halt the use of inherently indiscriminate projectiles, which violate international humanitarian law, as well as attacks directed against civilians”.

The UN office also urged Israel to ensure full respect for international humanitarian and human rights law “in any and all military operations”.

OHCHR said that rhetoric from Israeli high-level officials “raises concerns that a message is being sent to the members of the Israeli Defense Forces that international humanitarian law has become optional rather than compulsory”.

(NAN)