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Over one million people sheltering in UNRWA facilities in Gaza

This is more than half of the total number of people displaced

BEIRUT, November 24. /TASS/. More than one million people are taking refuge in facilities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said.

"UNRWA records more than 1 million people now sheltering in our facilities across the Gaza Strip. This is more than half of the total number of people displaced. They live in over 150 UNRWA schools and buildings," he said in a statement posted on the organization’s website.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas announced on November 22 that an agreement on a four-day humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip had been reached through the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. The agreement stipulates the release of 50 women and children under the age of 19 who are held in Gaza in exchange for the release of 150 women and children under the age of 19 from Israeli prisons.

According to the Arab mass media, the ceasefire came into force inn the Gaza Strip from 8:00 a.m. local time (5:00 a.m. GMT).