The World Health Organization (WHO) says Israel’s offensive in central Gaza has compromised its efforts to continue working, after its facilities came under attack.

The UN agency accused Israeli forces of attacking a staff residence in the city of Deir al-Balah on Monday and mistreating those sheltering there. Its main warehouse was also attacked and destroyed.

The WHO said one of its staff detained by troops during the raid on the residence was still being held and demanded their immediate release.

The Israeli military said it detained “several individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism” in the area and that most were released.

The first major Israeli ground operation in Deir al-Balah since the start of the war has displaced tens of thousands of civilians, amid warnings of a severe hunger crisis.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday that 33 people, including 12 children, had died from malnutrition across the territory over the past 48 hours.

The UN also said it had received growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition and warned that “the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing”.

On Sunday, the Israeli military ordered the immediate evacuation of six city blocks in southern Deir al-Balah, warning that it would be operating “with great force to destroy the enemy’s capabilities and terrorist infrastructure”.

The estimated 50,000 to 80,000 people living in the affected areas were instructed to head south towards the al-Mawasi area in the south of the territory.

The UN’s humanitarian office said UN staff would remain in Deir al-Balah despite the evacuation order, spread across dozens of premises whose co-ordinates had been shared with Israel, and stressed that they had to be protected.

On Monday night, the WHO put out a statement saying it condemned “in the strongest terms” attacks on its facilities.

It said the WHO staff residence was attacked three times, and that staff and their families, including children, were “exposed to grave danger and traumatized after air strikes caused a fire and significant damage”.

“Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward al-Mawasi amid active conflict. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint,” it added.

“Two WHO staff and two family members were detained. Three were later released, while one staff member remains in detention.”

The WHO demanded the immediate release of its detained staff member and the protection of its other staff, who have been relocated with their families to its office in Deir al-Balah.

The WHO said its main warehouse in the city was damaged after “an attack caused explosions and fire inside”. The warehouse was later looted by desperate crowds, it added.

The agency did not attribute blame for the attack, but said it was “part of a pattern of systematic destruction of health facilities”.

The WHO warned that its operational presence in Gaza was “now compromised, crippling efforts to sustain a collapsing health system and pushing survival further out of reach for more than two million people”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Tuesday its troops had come under fire in the Deir al-Balah area and “responded toward the area from which the shooting originated”.

Without mentioning the WHO, the IDF said it had warned civilians to evacuate beforehand and had also been “in contact with the international organisations working in the area”.

“As part of IDF activity against the terrorist organisations in the area, the troops detained several individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism,” it added.

“After questioning in the field, the majority were released and evacuated from the area in co-ordination with the international organisations. It should be emphasized that the suspects are treated in accordance with international law.”

The aim of the Israeli offensive in Deir al-Balah is not year clear.

But Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said troops were operating to “establish a corridor that will cut through the city, severing it from the al-Mawasi area and preventing free movement between central Gaza refugee camps where the Israeli army has no ground presence”.

Israeli sources say that the possible presence of Israeli hostages held by Hamas is one reason why Deir al-Balah has so far not been the target of a ground offensive. At least 20 of the 50 hostages still in captivity are believed to be alive.

Hostages’ families have expressed concern that an offensive could endanger them.

Wounded ‘left to bleed without treatment’

Medics said shellfire killed at least three Palestinians in Deir al-Balah on Monday, as Israeli tanks advanced into southern and eastern areas.

Another two people were killed on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

In northern Gaza, at least 14 people were killed and 25 wounded overnight when tents for displaced families were hit by two shells in al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, a local hospital said. Children and women were among the casualties, it added.

Raed Bakr said a “massive explosion” blew away the tent where he lives with his three children.

“I felt like I was in a nightmare. Fire, dust, smoke and body parts flying through the air, dirt everywhere. The children were screaming,” he told AFP news agency.

According to the UN, about 87.8% of Gaza is now covered by Israeli evacuation orders or is within Israeli militarised zones, leaving the 2.1 million population squeezed into about 46 sq km (18 sq miles) of land where essential services have collapsed.

Asma Mustafa, a mother of two and teacher who has just been displaced for the ninth time during the war, said Gaza was “a place of death, hunger and exhaustion”.

“Clean water is a dream. The wounded are left to bleed without treatment. Children cry from hunger and mothers are powerless. We are living through a slow miserable death,” she said in a message to the BBC’s Newsday programme.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement: “It seemed the nightmare couldn’t possibly get any worse. And yet it does.”

“Given the concentration of civilians in the area, and the means and methods of warfare employed by Israel until now, the risks of unlawful killings and other serious violations of international humanitarian law are extremely high,” he said.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot urged Israel to allow international media access to Gaza “to show what is happening there and bear witness”.

He spoke after AFP’s Society of Journalists warned that the lives of local freelance journalists it was working with in Gaza were in danger and appealed to Israel to allow their evacuation.

A statement from the society cited the example of one of the journalists, 30-year-old Bashar, who wrote on social media on Sunday: “I no longer have the strength to work for the media.” He also said his older brother “fell because of hunger”.

On Monday, one freelance photojournalist, Tamer al-Zaanin, was killed and another freelance photojournalist, Ibrahim Abu Ushaibeh, was injured when Israeli special forces detained a senior official in Gaza’s health ministry, Dr Marwan al-Hams, according to Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The two journalists were reportedly interviewing Dr Hams outside a field hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Rafah area at the time of the incident.

The health ministry cited witnesses as saying that Dr Hams sustained a foot injury while being detained and expressed deep concern for his health in Israeli custody.

The ICRC confirmed it treated casualties from the incident but did not comment further on their status. The Israeli military has also not yet commented.

Channel 4 News said it understood a freelance journalist who regularly worked for it was injured and that it was “working to establish the facts on the ground”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 59,029 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

—-BBC