The United Nations was forced to halt its humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip on Monday due to a new Israeli evacuation order targeting Deir al-Balah in the central Palestinian territory, a senior UN official said.
“I spoke this morning with my security advisor on the ground and asked him, ‘Are there any operations this morning? ’ He said, ‘No way.
He added: “The reason is related to the evacuation orders that arrived yesterday.” [dimanche] Which affects the Deir al-Balah area where we moved most of our personnel and operations after the Rafah evacuation order a few months ago.
“Which brings us to the point where we can no longer operate,” he insisted. “This is not a decision to stop operations, but in practical terms, we can no longer operate.”
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, the UN has at times had to “delay or stop” its operations, “but never to the point of saying concretely that we can no longer do anything,” as is the case now, he added, stressing his desire to resume operations as soon as possible.
“We have to find solutions. If that means stopping for 24 or 48 hours and starting from scratch, we have to do it, but we are not leaving. We have to be there to do our best.” [d’aide] maybe”.
“The challenge now is to find a place to start again and work efficiently.”
