Hundreds of thousands of Gazans ‘being confined into ever smaller areas’, says Volker Turk

Palestinian Territories – AFP

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has voiced alarm that hundreds of thousands of Gazans “are being confined into ever smaller areas” in the southern of the territory.

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he said on Sunday.

Israel has killed more than 15,500 people in the besieged Palestinian territory, according to its health ministry, since October 7.

Israeli air and artillery strikes hit Gaza’s northern frontier with Israel, throwing thick clouds of smoke and dust into the sky.

The Israeli army reported 17 rocket salvos from Gaza into Israel on Sunday, adding that most were intercepted and there was only slight material damage.

– ‘Too many’ innocents killed –

Israel’s ally the United States, which provides it with billions of dollars in military aid annually, has intensified calls for the protection of Gaza’s civilians.

“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters at UN climate talks in Dubai.

In a new estimate, OCHA said around 1.8 million people in Gaza, roughly 75 percent of the population, had been displaced, many to overcrowded and unsanitary shelters.

Jumana Murad said her son Mohammad, 19, was killed as he tried to help women and children out of a tent inside a school.

“A piece of shrapnel hit him in the head,” she told AFP before bursting into tears.

Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis overflowed with both the wounded and the dead.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that some patients there were being treated on the floor, in conditions “unimaginable for the provision of health care”.

Gazans are short of food, water and other essentials, and the aid reaching them is “a drop in the ocean of needs,” said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Fighting also flared on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

The Israeli army said it had launched artillery strikes in response to cross-border fire, and its fighter jets hit a number of targets linked to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said it had launched several attacks on Israeli positions, including a missile strike on a military vehicle.

– British surveillance –

Hamas has ruled out release of more Israelis until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.

“The price to pay for the release of Zionist (Israeli) prisoners will be the release of all our prisoners -– after a ceasefire,” Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’s politburo, said on Saturday, referring to thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

There are still 137 Israelis held in Gaza, Israel’s army said.

Britain’s defence ministry said that it would conduct surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza “in support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity”.