A U.N. agency is warning that an order by Israel’s military to evacuate parts of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza has displaced humanitarian workers and “severely impacts” the organization’s ability to deliver “essential support and services.”

The evacuation order — signaling a potential ground operation in an area that has been largely spared in the fighting between Israel and Hamas — has shrunk the size of the humanitarian zone that Israel declared at the outset of the war. The orders, which cram

Palestinians into smaller areas, have escalated concerns about hunger and the spread of disease in crowded tent camps that in some cases lack access to food and clean water, aid groups say.

The mayor of Deir al-Balah told The Washington Post that an estimated 1 million displaced people and residents are living in the city, which is surrounded by Israeli tanks and warplanes. “There is artillery shelling in the vicinity of the areas marked for evacuation,” said Mayor Diab Al-Jarou.

Residents are unable to reach the city’s landfill or many of its water wells, resulting in a proliferation of garbage and lost access to drinking water, he said. “Deir al-Balah has 19 water wells, three of which were put out of service at the beginning of the war due to their proximity to the border areas. With the recent evacuations, the number of wells out of service has risen to 14, and two main water tanks are now also out of service,” he said.

The U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, said Monday that the “relocations took place at short notice and in dangerous conditions” and that the move “effectively upends a whole lifesaving humanitarian hub that was set up in Deir al Balah following its evacuation from Rafah back in May.”

Georgios Petropoulos, head of OCHA in Gaza, told The Post on Monday that “major humanitarian operations have never stopped fully, but they are at the most curtailed they have ever been due to inaccessibility.”

Israel’s military said Monday it was continuing to “expand operational activity on the outskirts of Deir al-Balah,” after ordering evacuations in the city over the weekend. The military said it had “dismantled a Hamas underground tunnel route” and uncovered “munitions, antitank missiles, military vests, and knives” in an apartment.

OCHA said it is concerned about the evacuation orders’ impact on premises that host aid workers along with U.N. warehouses, wells, a water reservoir and a desalination plant that are either in or near the designated area for evacuation. The orders have also displaced U.N. humanitarian workers, nongovernmental organizations and service providers, along with their families, it added.

The agency also cited the possible impact on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in the Strip and the main one serving central Gaza. While Israel has not ordered the hospital’ evacuation, OCHA and aid groups said many patients and workers have left, reducing health care capacity. The Gaza Health Ministry said panic surrounding the orders left only 100 at the hospital for treatment from about 650 patients.

“This situation is unacceptable,” said the medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders. “Al Aqsa has been operating well beyond capacity for weeks due to the lack of alternatives for patients. All warring parties must respect the hospital, as well as patients’ access to medical care.”

“These evacuation orders … make our work nearly impossible,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, told reporters Monday. “Part of protecting civilians is ensuring that civilians can eat, that people can wash themselves, they have access to medicine, they have access to the most basic needs that human beings need to survive.” Here’s what else to know

• The United Nations is warning of a “perfect storm of conditions” for the spread of the polio virus in Gaza, said Sam Rose, director of planning for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). He told reporters the disease could “spread very rapidly” as the agency called for a wider humanitarian pause. About 1.2 million doses of polio vaccine have arrived in Gaza set to immunize 640,000 children, the United Nations said after the first case of polio was confirmed earlier this month in a 10-month-old baby.

• Israeli security forces have detained a number of Palestinian health care workers from Gaza without charge and allegedly tortured some of them, according to a new Human Rights Watch report. The group says it interviewed eight Palestinian health care workers who were taken from Gaza since Oct. 7 and detained without charge in cases ranging between seven days and five months.

Released doctors and nurses described “humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care,” said the group. The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• The recent fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces had “no impact” on ongoing cease-fire talks, but negotiators were unable to clinch a deal in their last meeting in Cairo amid continued disagreements, said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

Negotiations will continue by lower-level officials staying in Cairo for the next few days, he added. “It’s safe to say that the issues they’re going to be talking about are of a much more detailed, specific nature than we’ve typically been able to talk about,” Kirby added, including the names of Palestinian prisoners who would be released by Israel in exchange for hostages held by Hamas.

• Violence has ramped up in the West Bank, with five people killed in Tulkarm on Monday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The IDF said an aircraft attacked “an operations room” in the Nur a-Shams area there. One other person was killed in the Wadi Rahal village in Bethlehem by a settler shooting incident, the ministry also said. The IDF said it was looking into the reports.

• Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar have condemned an Israeli far-right minister’s call for a synagogue to be built inside the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has previously stoked tensions by praying at the holy site, despite restrictions against non-Muslims, in a bid to derail cease-fire talks. In separate statements, Egypt described Ben Gvir’s most recent remarks as irresponsible, while Qatar and Saudi called them a provocation.

• At least 40,476 ​​people have been killed and 93,647 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry on Tuesday. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 338 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza. Lior Soroka, Hazem Balousha and Loveday Morris contributed to this report.

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