HAMILTON, Canada

The UN on Friday warned of devastating consequences for civilians in the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces intensified their attacks via airstrikes on the besieged enclave at an alarming frequency.

Citing the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference that "Israeli forces have stepped up their operations over the past 24 hours, with devastating consequences for civilians. On average, this meant an airstrike every eight or nine minutes."

He said the UN teams monitoring population movement "counted about 16,500 displaced people from Northern Gaza to the south" on Thursday alone.

Dujarric noted that aid workers remain positioned along displacement routes to provide support but warned of mounting challenges.

"Aid workers remain stationed along displacement routes, offering psychosocial first aid, referring people to specialized services when needed, and educating new arrivals on the danger of explosive ordinances," he said.

Despite these efforts, hundreds of thousands of people remain in Gaza City amid widespread insecurity. They rely heavily on humanitarian assistance because more critical services have been forced to close or relocate, he said.

On Israel's continued access restrictions, he reported that on Thursday, "out of 15 movements that we tried to coordinate with Israeli authorities to support people in different parts of Gaza, only seven were fully facilitated."

Dujarric stressed that OCHA has urged Israel to "fully facilitate humanitarian operations, including unimpeded movements of aid into and across the Gaza Strip."

Turning to the situation in the occupied West Bank, he said more than 3,000 Palestinians, half of them children, have been displaced by illegal Israeli settler attacks and Israeli access restrictions since October 2023.