Israeli forces raided a World Health Organisation (WHO) staff residence in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah on Monday, detaining staff and family members and forcing them to flee on foot, the agency’s chief has reported.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Israeli air strikes struck the residence three times, igniting a fire which ripped through the premises.
“The Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi amid active conflict,” Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
He reported that male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated and screened at gunpoint, adding that two staff and two family members were detained.
Three have since been released, with one remaining in detention, while 32 WHO staff and family members were evacuated to the nearby WHO offices.
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WHO’s main warehouse was also targeted, causing explosions and fires that damaged the facility, hamstringing the agency’s ability to support local hospitals and emergency teams.
Israeli artillery shelling pounded Deir al-Balah on Monday as the army pushed deeper into the southern and eastern parts of the city.
The escalation came hours after the army issued expulsion orders for large swathes of central Gaza, ordering some 50,000 and 80,000 people to leave immediately.
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Shelling targeted densely populated areas, striking houses and mosques, and killing at least three Palestinians, according to medical sources.
The spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP that “we received calls from several families trapped in the Al-Baraka area of Deir al-Balah due to shelling by Israeli tanks”.
“There are a number of wounded, but no one can reach the area to evacuate them,” he said.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the latest order leaves 87.8 percent of Gaza’s area under “evacuation orders” or within Israeli militarised zones.
Tedros reported that several WHO premises have been impacted by the assault, compromising the agency’s ability to operate in Gaza, where the strained health system is facing imminent collapse.
“WHO urgently calls on member states to help ensure a sustained and regular flow of medical supplies into Gaza,” Tedros said.
“A ceasefire is not just necessary, it is overdue,” he added.
