BEIRUT, August 22. /TASS/. Around 250,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were forced to flee their homes due to hostilities, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said.

"So far in August, the Israeli authorities issued 12 evacuation orders affecting around 250,000 people in Gaza. Families are repeatedly displaced, carrying what they can amid military operations and summer heat," the UN agency said on the X social network.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 240 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes have also been reported in the West Bank.