The United Nations has made an appeal for nearly $294 million in funds to address 'the most urgent needs', in Gaza and the West Bank. These urgent needs include food and medical supplies.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said that more than 4,00,000 people have left their homes in Gaza city. The organisation also informed of the death of 23 aid workers, ever since Israeli forces started a retaliatory operation in the West Bank.
"Mass displacement continues. In the Gaza Strip, the cumulative number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) increased by 25 per cent over the past 24 hours, now exceeding 4,23,000, of whom over two thirds are taking shelter in UNRWA schools," OCHA said, referring to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency.
"The resources required to adequately respond to the full range of needs of vulnerable Palestinians," the agency added.
The UN body intends to use the funds to help more than 12 lakh million people. OCHA added that the conflict in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources.
On 7 October, gunmen from Hamas stormed small villages, kibbutzim, and an Israeli music festival, slaughtering around 1,200 people without a kill list and kidnapping over 150 more.
In retaliation, Israel has bombarded Gaza, a densely populated territory with 23 lakhs people, with air and artillery assaults. This has caused structures to collapse and killed over 1,400 people, many of them civilians.
Gaza's 60 per cent households were already marked to be food insecure before the start of the new conflict.
