The forced mass displacement of families from Gaza City is a “deadly threat to the most vulnerable,” UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said this week as bombs continue to fall on Gaza in an escalating Israeli assault on the city.
Speaking to reporters from southern Gaza, the representative from UNICEF—officially called the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund—condemned the way that Palestinian families and their hungry children are being chased out by the Israeli military.
“It is inhumane to expect nearly half-a-million children, who have suffered violence and psychological trauma from more than 700 days of ongoing conflict,” Ingram said, “to flee one hell only to end up in another.”
Nowhere is safe
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), partners monitoring population movements in Gaza have counted nearly 70,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) heading south over the past few days, and around 150,000 over the past month.
Ingram said the only accessible exit route from Gaza City, on Rashid Street, was “extremely busy” when she visited on Monday.
The UNICEF spokesperson described meeting a mother who had walked for more than six hours from Gaza City to the south with her five children, “all dirty, thirsty, and starving,” two of them barefoot. She added that these families are being pushed into the “so-called humanitarian zone,” which includes al-Mawasi and the surrounding areas.
Ingram described their destination as a “sea of makeshift tents and human despair” where services are insufficient to support the hundreds of thousands already living there.
She recalled that the al-Mawasi area was subjected to an Israeli attack about two weeks ago, in which eight children were killed while standing in line for water; the youngest victim was three years old.
“People don’t really have a good option,” she said, to the point that some families “come, look, and go back to Gaza City” when they realize there is “nowhere safe” to go.
Hunger stalks the land
She said that malnutrition among children in Gaza is worsening, noting that according to UNICEF estimates, approximately 26,000 children in the Strip currently require treatment for severe malnutrition, including more than 10,000 children in Gaza City alone, where famine was confirmed late last month.
Ingram reported that more feeding centers in Gaza City were forced to close this week due to “evacuation orders” and Israeli military escalation, “depriving children of a third of the remaining treatment centers that could save their lives.”
She stressed that humanitarian workers remain in their positions and continue to respond to the crisis, “but the situation becomes more difficult with every bombing and every blockade.”
“Permanent demographic shift”
For its part, the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory reiterated its call on the Israeli occupation forces to “immediately halt the barbaric destruction of Gaza City, which appears aimed at bringing about a permanent demographic shift, amounting to ethnic cleansing.”
In a statement, the office confirmed that the ongoing Israeli bombardment of residential buildings in the city “is destroying the last viable element of infrastructure, undermining any possibility of civilian survival.”
A spokesman said that many Palestinians are being killed in the intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza City that began on Sept. 11, and “the vast majority appear to be civilians.” However, it added that it is difficult to assess the total number of casualties resulting from attacks on buildings used as shelters, “as many bodies remain under the rubble.”
The office also noted that the Israeli occupation forces closed the vital Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, completely halting the flow of humanitarian aid, “which could exacerbate the famine in the region.”
As mass displacement to the southern Gaza Strip increases, overcrowding worsens, and protection-related incidents increase, the Human Rights Office confirmed that the occupying Israeli authorities continue to impose restrictions on the large-scale entry of tents and other materials into the Gaza Strip, which are “the most urgent need to ensure dignity and safety during displacement.”
The Human Rights Office said that the conduct of Israeli occupation forces in Gaza raises concerns about the commission of “a full range of crimes under international law,’ and that the international community must therefore take concrete action “to stop this unjustified destruction, killing, and displacement.”
No future for Palestinian children
Regarding education, the Human Rights Office stressed that depriving Palestinian children of education for three consecutive academic years, along with the killing of thousands of students and the destruction of educational infrastructure, “represents a humanitarian emergency and a grave violation of international law.”
According to the Gaza Ministry of Education and Higher Education, more than 17,237 school students and 1,271 university students, along with 967 teaching staff, have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s assault. The United Nations found that 97% of the Gaza Strip’s schools have been damaged by the war.
The disruption is not limited to Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the United Nations documented more than 2,000 incidents impacting schools during the 2024-25 school year—disrupting the education of 84,749 students—including the firing of live ammunition and tear gas by Israeli forces near schools and demolition or stop-work orders.
The Human Rights Office affirmed that international humanitarian law provides clear protection for education during armed conflict, emphasizing that repeated attacks on schools and the killing of students and teachers “may amount to war crimes.”
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