\n<\/p>\n
As Israel\u2019s invasion of Rafah stretches into its third week, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the southern Gaza city have encountered miserable conditions in their new encampments and shelters.<\/p>\n
Shortages of food, clean water and bathrooms have made the experience of relocating particularly dreadful, Gazans say, and price gouging has made the trip unaffordable for those who need transportation, including older and disabled people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re dealing with horrific circumstances,\u201d said Khalil el-Halabi, a retired U.N. official in his 70s who left Rafah last week for Al-Mawasi, a beachside area that Israel has designated as a \u201chumanitarian zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have what we need,\u201d Mr. Halabi said. \u201cWe can barely even find water.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 800,000 people have left Rafah in the past two weeks, a United Nations official said on Monday. Israel\u2019s military said the same day that more than 950,000 civilians in the city had relocated since it gave expanded evacuation orders. A military spokesman said about 300,000 to 400,000 civilians remain there.<\/p>\n
The latest wave of displacement in Gaza<\/a> began on May 6 when Israel sent out evacuation notices and launched military operations in eastern Rafah, which is along the border with Egypt. More than half of the enclave\u2019s civilians had been seeking refuge in the city \u2014 most of them after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza multiple times.<\/p>\n Ali Jebril, 27, a wheelchair-bound basketball player, said he and his family paid $600 to have 35 people taken from eastern Rafah to Khan Younis by bus earlier this month.<\/p>\n Mr. Jebril, who said his wheelchair can\u2019t navigate in the sandy beachside areas where many have resettled, has moved to a tent on the grounds of a hospital in Khan Younis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not living a dignified life,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re confronting a catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n The war, he said, has made him feel that he has become a burden on society, frequently asking others to help him.<\/p>\n Since Israel\u2019s incursions into Rafah, the once overcrowded shelters and tent villages in the city have largely emptied out, Edem Wosornu, an official with the United Nations\u2019 office for humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council on Monday<\/a>. People have moved to areas near Khan Younis and Deir al Balah and set up makeshift camps that lack sanitation, water, drainage or shelter, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have described it as a catastrophe, a nightmare, as hell on earth,\u201d Ms. Wosornu said. \u201cIt is all of these, and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the beginning of the war in October, three-quarters of Gaza\u2019s population has been displaced, with many people moving four or five times, she said.<\/p>\n Israel has cast the orders as a humanitarian step to protect civilians ahead of further military action, which they say is necessary to root out Hamas fighters in southern Gaza. But aid groups said the additional displacement is worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.<\/p>\n In its latest update<\/a>, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs described people living in clusters of 500 to 700 tents, many of them fashioned out of blankets, nylon or whatever other materials were available. Some tents were set up on an unstable beach slope, with waste from higher areas rolling downhill past the dwellings into the sea, according to the report.<\/p>\n Mr. Halabi said that food was available in markets, but that his family was so low on money that paying for it was hard.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter seven months of war, we barely have anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While an increasing number of commercial trucks have entered Gaza recently, aid coming to the south through the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings has come to a near halt. UNRWA, the primary U.N. agency for Palestinian aid, said that in a 16-day period through Tuesday, just 69 aid trucks entered through the two crossings \u2014 the lowest rate since the first weeks of the war.<\/p>\n Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the chief U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, wrote in a social media post<\/a> that each relocation comes with risks and takes a heavy toll.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time, they are forced to leave behind the few belongings they have: mattresses, tents, cooking utensils and basic supplies that they cannot carry or pay to transport,\u201d he wrote. \u201cEvery time, they have to start from scratch, all over again.\u202f\u201d<\/p>\n