HAMILTON, Canada

The UN warned on Tuesday that urgent humanitarian aid must reach the Gaza Strip before winter, as families continue to move into areas that have become newly accessible since a ceasefire on Oct. 10.

Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said that "families in the Gaza Strip continue to move towards areas that are newly accessible since the ceasefire, with some seeking shelter in displacement sites that are already overcrowded."

"Our partners monitoring the flow of people across the Strip report that on Sunday, they recorded nearly 13,800 displacements towards Gaza City and North Gaza, and about 4,100 movements towards the east," he said.

He said aid organizations in Gaza "continue to scale up their operations as outlined in the 60-day plan, expanding their presence in areas that were previously inaccessible and increasing assistance to meet growing needs."

With priority on shelter materials, Haq reported that "on Sunday, they (humanitarian partners) distributed 300 tents to vulnerable households in Khan Younis and 14,700 blankets to families in 16 displacement sites across the Al Mawasi area, also in Khan Younis."

"Our partners stress that far greater volumes of shelter materials must be allowed into Gaza before the winter season begins," he said, adding that it "will require Israeli authorities to authorize more humanitarian organizations to bring in those supplies."

"So far, only a limited number of UN agencies and partner organizations have such permissions," Haq noted.

Sharing the latest on the aid operations at the crossings, Haq said UN teams "have been able to collect 10,638 metric tons of essential supplies from those crossings" since the start of the ceasefire and as of October 19.

"The UN and our partners also continue to offload supplies at the available crossings. Between 17 and 19 October, 303 UN and partner trucks with 6,455 pallets of aid were offloaded at the Kerem Shalom/Karem Abu Salem and Kissufim crossings, according to the UN 2720 Mechanism," he said, adding that the majority of the aid consisted of food, while water, sanitation and hygiene items made up the rest.

On the occupied West Bank, Haq reported that "two weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, it has already seen severe attacks by armed settlers in the West Bank against Palestinian men, women, children and foreign solidarity activists."

"In the first half of 2025 alone, there were 757 settler attacks causing casualties or property damage – a 13% increase over the same period in 2024," he said, citing the UN Human Rights Office.

Israel has killed over 68,200 people and injured more than 170,300 in Gaza since October 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The occupied West Bank also witnessed a sharp rise in attacks over the same period, with at least 1,056 Palestinians killed, around 10,300 injured, and more than 20,000, including 1,600 children, detained, according to official Palestinian figures.