Nearly two million people have fled their homes in Gaza since Israel began its military operation on October 7.

The Gaza Strip has been under Hamas rule since 2007, and Israel says it is trying to destroy Hamas’ military and governance capabilities.

Gaza – a densely populated area 41 km long and 10 km wide, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on one side and fenced by Israel and Egypt on the other. According to UN officials, “it is now depopulated”.

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Israel warned Gazans to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip weeks after the Hamas attack.

Gaza City was also included in the evacuation zone. Which was the most densely populated area of the Gaza Strip. The Erez border crossing to Israel in the north is closed, so those living in the evacuation zone had no choice but to head to the southern districts.

According to the United Nations, only 75 percent of Gaza’s population — about 1.7 million people — were already registered refugees before Israel warned Palestinians to leave northern Gaza.

Palestine refugees are defined by the United Nations as those whose “place of residence was Palestine during the period from 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both their home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 war.” were given”. A population of more than 500,000 refugees lived in eight overcrowded camps across the strip.

The United Nations says many of these refugees have joined hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee their homes since October 7 following Israeli warnings.

About 1.7 million Palestinians are currently huddled in emergency shelters or nearby informal settlements.

On average, before the conflict, Gaza had more than 5,700 people per square kilometer – very similar to the average density in London – but the figure was more than 9,000 in Gaza City, the most populous area. The United Nations says that more than half of Gaza’s population is now trapped in Rafah, originally home to 250,000 people.

According to UN aid coordinator Martin Griffiths, “Their living conditions are extremely poor – they lack the basic necessities to survive, are vulnerable to hunger, disease and death.”

The United Nations has warned that overcrowding in its emergency shelters in central and southern Gaza has become a major concern, with some exceeding their capacity.

Many of these emergency shelters are schools, and some contain dozens of people in a single classroom. Other families are living in tents or temporary shelters in the compound or in open areas of waste land.

Between the beginning of December and mid-January, the new tented areas near the Egyptian border covered around 3.5 square kilometres, the equivalent of around 500 Premier League football pitches.

Satellite images taken on October 15 and January 14 show a dramatic change – almost every bit of accessible, undeveloped land in an area of northwestern Rafah has now been turned into a shelter for displaced people.