Many displaced Gazans are living “in the open, in the parks,” Juliette Touma of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has told the BBC.
According to the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), at least 100,000 people have fled to Rafah – which borders Egypt in Gaza’s south – in recent days.
UNRWA’s Ms Touma said the UN is being authorised to bring in “limited assistance”.
But Gaza’s humanitarian needs, she said, “have massively grown”.
Israel has said it is not limiting aid and the problem is with its distribution.
Ms Touma said UNRWA continues to face “restrictions to access areas in the Gaza Strip where we should access”.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas’s deadly 7 October attack, in which 1,200 people were killed and a further 240 taken hostage.
Access to humanitarian aid in the 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide enclave has been tightly controlled since the start of the war.
At the start of its military campaign, Israeli forces focused much of the fighting on Gaza’s north. But more recently, Israel has been pounding Khan Younis in southern Gaza, which it sees as a stronghold for Hamas.
According to the UN agency OCHA, the most recent wave of displacement into Rafah was due to intense fighting in Khan Younis and other parts of the territory.
Speaking from Rafah, UNRWA’s Gaza director Tom White told the BBC there are “well over a million people” seeking safety in the city.
Mr White said that for “hundreds of thousands of people” seeking safety in Rafah, “there are no spots left” in shelters – which include UNRWA schools and other municipal facilities.
He echoed comments made by Ms Touma, explaining that “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are now sleeping in the open under flimsy pieces of plastic” as a result of the overcrowding.
In its latest report, UNRWA said up to 1.9m people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
Residents in Khan Younis reported intense gun battles between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters. Elsewhere in Gaza on Saturday, fighting was also reported in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Maghazi and in al-Bureij.
In a statement on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic-language spokesman warned that the main north-south road in Gaza, the Salah al-Din, was a “battlefield” and “dangerous to reach”.
More than 21,672 people have been killed since the start of Israel’s offensive, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The ministry has said a further 56,165 Palestinians have been injured.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a spike in the spread of infectious diseases across Gaza’s displaced community.
WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there has been a rise in the number of diseases across Gaza between mid-October and mid-December.
He said that across UN shelters there have been some 136,400 cases of diarrhoea, 55,400 cases of lice and scabies, and 126 cases of meningitis.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
