Egyptian and U.S. authorities agreed to prevent the displacement of Palestinians from their lands in Gaza, the former's foreign ministry said Tuesday, as a majority of the people living in the enclave have been displaced due to Israel's ongoing attacks.
The ministry added that Egypt had urged the U.S. to support the U.N. resolution on humanitarian aid for Gaza.
The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday expressed concern over the growing number of civilians in Gaza being "increasingly corralled" toward the Palestinian enclave's border with Egypt as hostilities with Israel continue.
Israeli attacks 'forcibly displaced' nearly 70% of the population in Gaza.
"The call for a ceasefire — on human rights and humanitarian grounds — is getting louder by the day, and must be heeded," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.
Noting that nearly 2 million people have been displaced, with many forced to move multiple times, Turk stressed that Israeli forces continue issuing evacuation orders in "a confusing and contradictory manner."
"Now, Palestinians are being forced into smaller and smaller areas, in a mass displacement up to the Gaza-Egyptian border while military operations continue to encroach ever closer," he said. "There is simply nowhere left in Gaza for them to go."
He stated that the southern city of Rafah has become an epicenter for displaced people, with over 1 million people "concentrated in extremely overcrowded and unbearable living conditions, exacerbated by the onset of winter."
The rights chief said that as Israel's siege of Gaza remains in place, the trickle of humanitarian aid entering from Egypt, as well as from the Kerem Shalom crossing which Israel opened on Sunday, allowed only a fraction of the relief needed, while people in the north of the enclave "getting no relief at all."
"In the north, an estimated 100,000 civilians remain completely isolated from relief efforts, and too scared to move amid the relentless bombing, tank patrols and for fear of snipers," Turk said.
"They are trapped in a living hell," he added.
Turk also called for a "full and immediate" investigation into all allegations of breaches of laws of war.
"Those responsible for such acts must be held to account, and justice served," he said.
Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip from the air and land, imposed a siege, and mounted a ground offensive in retaliation for a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.
At least 19,667 Palestinians have since been killed and 52,586 injured in the Israeli onslaught, according to Gaza's health authorities.
