\n<\/p>\n
U.N. officials warned on Sunday that pressure was mounting near Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt, an area where tens of thousands of Palestinians have tried to flee Israel\u2019s military campaign. <\/p>\n
Gazans have flocked to the area seeking safety and supplies. Thousands continue to arrive, heeding evacuation orders from Israel\u2019s military that named parts of Rafah, the region next to the crossing, as a place to go for refuge, even as Israel expands its ground operation in the south.<\/p>\n
But relief is in short supply. Aid officials have warned of \u201cextreme\u201d<\/a> overcrowding and a \u201cdire\u201d situation in the border area, and have raised alarms about the spread of disease. Deteriorating conditions could push Palestinians over the border into Egypt, two U.N. officials warned on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe health care system is collapsing,\u201d Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, warned on Sunday in Qatar, saying that there was \u201cno effective protection of civilians in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI expect public order to completely break down soon, and an even worse situation could unfold, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which takes care of Palestinian refugees, said that even if there was no \u201cdeliberate policy,\u201d Israel\u2019s military operations were \u201cputting more and more pressure for this type of scenario to unfold.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe population has been pushed more and more into tinier and tinier and tinier pieces of land in the Gaza Strip, and there is no way that this piece of land will be able to accommodate such a high number of people,\u201d he said in an interview on Sunday.<\/p>\n Gazans who have fled to the Rafah area thinking that the southern part of the Gaza Strip would be safe have found airstrikes there, too<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no other place \u2014 and no safe place,\u201d said Ziad Obeid, a senior civil servant for the Palestinian Authority, who said he had come to the outskirts of Rafah with his family after being displaced farther and farther south since the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are fighting day and night just to get some bread, water and some vegetables,\u201d he said, adding that he had struggled without success to find a few eggs for his elderly mother.<\/p>\n