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UN Suspends Aid Movements at Night in Gaza

A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
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UN Suspends Aid Movements at Night in Gaza

A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)

The United Nations has suspended movements at night in Gaza for at least 48 hours to evaluate security issues following the killing of staff working for the World Central Kitchen food charity, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.

He said the suspension started on Tuesday. The World Food Program is continuing operations during the day, including daily efforts to send convoys to the north of Gaza "where people are dying," Dujarric said.

"As famine closes in we need humanitarian staff and supplies to be able to move freely and safely across the Gaza Strip," he told reporters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel mistakenly killed seven people working for World Central Kitchen in a Gaza airstrike on Monday, prompting condemnations and calls for explanations from the United States and other allies

The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.

The UN has repeatedly called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the six-month long war between Israel and Hamas. Israel is retaliating against Hamas in Gaza over a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian gunmen.

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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.