UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 : United Nations aid operations in besieged Gaza ground to a halt on Monday after Israel issued new evacuation orders on Sunday for Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip where the U.N. operations center was located, a senior U.N. official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of this morning, we are not operating in Gaza,\u201d the official told reporters, but adding that they would not be leaving the beleaguered enclave.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces issued new evacuation orders for parts of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where the U.N. had moved its core operations in May following orders to evacuate Rafah in southern Gaza.<\/p>\n
According to the United Nations, Sunday\u2019s evacuation order is the 16th this month.<\/p>\n
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said the United Nations had only a few hours to move international and Palestinian staff, several hundred dependents and equipment to an area in Al-Mawasi that Israel has designated as a safe zone. Some staff are sleeping in a warehouse.<\/p>\n
The U.N. had to leave so quickly that some equipment was left behind, the official said, and they were unable to go back for it Monday because the Israeli occupation troops had already moved into the area.<\/p>\n
The official said the U.N. is now looking for a safe place where they can \u201creset\u201d their operations.<\/p>\n
The U.N. estimates that about 86% of Gaza is under Israeli evacuation orders, pushing more than 2 million people into a sliver of land with few basic services.<\/p>\n
Two officials with the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Monday from central Gaza that despite the latest evacuation order, their agency is continuing to offer some health care to communities.<\/p>\n
UNRWA will also be a key player, along with the World Health Organization, and the U.N. International Children\u2019s Emergency Fund, or UNICEF, in a massive polio vaccination campaign due to begin Saturday that aims to reach 640,000 children in Gaza with double doses of the vaccine.<\/p>\n
The virus was detected last month in environmental samples from Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah and at least one case has been confirmed in a 10-month-old baby \u2014 the first case in Gaza in 25 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 : United Nations aid operations in besieged Gaza ground to a halt on Monday after Israel issued new evacuation orders on Sunday for Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip where the U.N. operations center was located, a senior U.N. official […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":112896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-world-news"],"yoast_head":"\n