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GENEVA: An official of the United Nations’ children’s agency said on Tuesday it was “inhumane” to expect hundreds of thousands of children to leave Gaza City as camps further south were unsafe, overcrowded and ill-equipped to receive them.
Israel announced on Tuesday the start of its long-awaited ground operation into Gaza City, the main urban center in the enclave where Israel has ordered residents to flee. So far, more than 140,000 have already fled south from Gaza City since August 14, UN data shows, of a population of around 1 million people.
“It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children, battered and traumatized by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict, to flee one hellscape and end up in another,” Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokesperson, told reporters by video link from the sprawling tent camp of Mawasi, Gaza.
Conditions there are so desperate that some people who fled Israel’s new offensive on famine-struck Gaza City in recent days are heading back toward the falling bombs, they told Reuters.
“People really do have no good option — stay in danger or flee to a place that they also know is dangerous,” she said, adding that some children had been killed at the Mawasi camp while collecting water.
Ingram described seeing large numbers of people fleeing down the main road out of Gaza City this week. One mother, Israa, made the journey on foot accompanied by her five hungry, thirsty children including two with no shoes, said Ingram, who met them.
“They were walking into the unknown — no clear destination or plan — with little hope of finding solace,” she said.

GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief warned on Tuesday that Israel’s airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar last week threatened regional peace and stability and urged “accountability for unlawful killings.”
“Israel’s strike on negotiators in Doha on September 9 was a shocking breach of international law,” Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council.
Israel targeted Hamas leaders last week in strikes on the Qatari capital, killing five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer.
The attack drew widespread international condemnation, including from Gulf monarchies allied with the United States, Israel’s main backer.
Opening an urgent debate on the strike before the council, Turk described it as “an assault on regional peace and stability, and a blow against the integrity of mediation and negotiating processes around the world.”
“As such, I condemn it and call on this Council and all governments to do the same.”
The council announced on Monday that it would convene the 10th urgent debate since its creation in 2006 following two official requests from member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf.
Israel, which disengaged from the rights council earlier this year, reacted angrily to the news of the urgent debate.
“This marks yet another shameful chapter in the Human Rights Council’s ongoing abuse,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, told journalists.
He accused the council of “serving as a platform for anti-Israel propaganda, while ignoring the brutal realities on the ground and the atrocities committed by Hamas.”
Turk said Israel’s September 9 attack “violated the right to life under international human rights law and the principles of international humanitarian law.”
“Targeting parties engaged in internationally supported mediation on its territory undermines Qatar’s key role as a facilitator and peace broker.
“It is an attack on global efforts to resolve conflicts peacefully,” he said.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the council “to reaffirm the central importance of mediation processes and to call for accountability for unlawful killings.”