Nearly 1m displaced Gazans face extreme cold: UN

Nearly one million displaced Palestinians in Gaza are at risk from extreme cold and rain this winter, the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has warned, a media report said.

“Displaced people in Gaza need protection from the rain and cold. Only around 23 per cent of this need has been met, leaving 945,000 people at risk of exposure this winter,” the UN agency said in a statement. “Aid is urgently required to address the overwhelming needs as the crisis deepens.”

The United Nations also renewed its call for a ceasefire in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes demolished homes and casualties increased.

“In Deir Al Balah and across Gaza, people search through the rubble of their destroyed homes, trying to salvage what little remains after an Israeli airstrike,” the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said in a post on X.

“As strikes continue, civilian casualties rise, and homes and vital infrastructure are reduced to ruins. The human cost of this war is unbearable. We need a ceasefire now.”

In a separate development, more than 4,000 amputations and 2,000 cases of spinal and brain injuries have been recorded in Gaza since the start of the Israeli offensive last year, a news agency reports.

Mohammad Abu Salmiya, Director of Al Shifa Medical Complex, stated that “the majority of those who have lost limbs are children.”

“More than 4,000 people have had their upper or lower limbs amputated since the beginning of the genocide,” he said. He added that over 2,000 people with spinal and brain injuries are now bedridden and in urgent need of rehabilitation.

Thousands more have suffered hearing and vision impairments due to the relentless bombardments, he added.

“The health system in Gaza lies in ruins, with no medical care or facilities available. The sole rehabilitation hospital, Hamad Hospital, and Gaza’s prosthetics centre have been completely destroyed,” said the official.

Israel struck the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, killing three Palestinians and wounding others, the Wafa news agency reports.

The agency said Israel targeted a house near the Shawwa Square in the neighbourhood, killing three civilians.

The report also added that Tel Aviv bombarded a residential compound near Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the enclave.

Agencies