Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ukraine

Occupied Palestinian Territory

OCHA warns that relentless hostilities in Gaza and repeated evacuation orders continue to constrain aid operations that are already hampered by access constraints, fuel shortages, and other challenges.

OCHA reports that parts of Salah ad Din road – a crucial passage for humanitarian missions – were included in the latest evacuation order by the Israeli authorities on Saturday for parts of Deir al Balah. This has made it nearly impossible for aid workers to move along this key route.

The Coastal Road is not a viable alternative. The beaches along this route are now crowded with makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians.

As a result, convoy movements along the Coastal Road are extremely slow, and critical supplies and services – such as water trucking – are not reaching people in need at anywhere near the scale required.

Ukraine

Ukraine's Humanitarian Coordinator, Matthias Schmale, condemned an overnight attack in the Donetsk Region, in the east of the country, where a transit centre for displaced people was damaged. The site in Pokrovsk Town was sheltering people who had fled earlier hostilities.

Schmale stressed that civilians and civilian infrastructure – including humanitarian facilities – are protected under international humanitarian law.

OCHA reports that escalating hostilities in the Donetsk Region continue to kill and injure civilians and drive displacement.

Humanitarian partners on the ground say deadly strikes over the past week in Pokrovsk and the towns of Myrnohrad and Toretsk have damaged homes and schools. Aid workers in Myrnohrad responded by delivering emergency materials and providing psychosocial support to affected people.

Civilians – including humanitarian workers – are facing daily threats to their safety as the hostilities in Ukraine continue. This year alone, six aid workers have been killed – five of them while on duty. More than two dozen others have been injured.