Wednesday 02 / April / 2025
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued evacuation orders for most of the southern Gazan city of Rafah and several nearby municipalities, a spokesperson confirmed on social media Monday morning.
After the IDF ended its ceasefire deal with Hamas earlier this month, it has again stepped up bombardment in several areas of Gaza.
Rafah remains largely in ruins due to a major assault on the area last May.
Despite initially agreeing to withdraw from the area, Israel has argued that it needs to maintain a presence in the border region with Egypt to prevent weapons smuggling.
Hamas-run health ministry says more than 1,000 people killed in Gaza since strikes resumed
Israel's offensive in Gaza since the military resumed large-scale strikes on March 18 has killed 1,001 people, the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory says.
There were at least 80 deaths in the past 48 hours, a ministry statement said.
The overall death toll in Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023, now stands at 50,357 people, according to the ministry's figures.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the UN and multiple humanitarian organizations consider the casualty numbers broadly reliable.
Around half of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants are children and the UN says the majority of civilians killed have been women and children.
Israel launched its Gaza operation after the Hamas attacks in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people.
UN condemns burial of Gaza aid workers in shallow graves
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has condemned the discovery of humanitarian workers’ bodies buried in shallow graves in Gaza, calling it ''a profound violation of human dignity.''
Posting on X, Lazzarini confirmed that the body of a UN colleague killed in Rafah had been recovered alongside aid workers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
Lazzarini emphasized that the individuals killed were humanitarian workers and stressed that civilians, whether working on the front lines or at home with their families, must be protected at all times.
He stated that putting emergency responders, journalists, or humanitarian staff at risk reflects a blatant and serious violation of international law. He warned that such actions must not be allowed to become a new standard.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, also described the site as a ''mass grave'' in his post on X.
He said the burial site had been marked by the flashing emergency light from a destroyed ambulance, and shared images of Red Crescent teams digging through sand near a crushed firetruck and a UN vehicle.
"Seven days ago, civil defence and PRCS ambulances arrived at the scene. One by one, they were hit, they were struck. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave,'' Whittall added in a post on X.
The Israeli military did not comment directly on the deaths of the PRCS workers. In a statement to Reuters, it said it had helped facilitate the evacuation of the bodies from what it called an ''active combat zone.'' It did not respond to questions regarding why the bodies were buried beneath sand or why the aid vehicles were crushed.
According to Lazzarini, the incident brings the number of humanitarian workers killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war to 408.
