In its latest report on the situation in the coastal enclave, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) highlighted that more than 500,000 Palestinians will not be able to return to their homes once the conflict is over.

Many more will be unable to return immediately due to the level of damage to the surrounding infrastructure, as well as the risk posed by explosive remnants of war, it added.

The agency warned of the severe humanitarian crisis in the territory, where 2.2 million inhabitants “need urgent food assistance every day, although on average, daily assistance in the last week of December reached only eight percent.”

OCHA noted that 85 percent of the Strip’s total population of 1.9 million are currently internally displaced, including many who were forced to flee several times.

The southern governorate of Rafah is now the main refuge for the displaced, with more than one million people crammed into an extremely overcrowded space, it warned.

The UN agency recalled that since last October 11, Gaza has been under an electricity blackout, after the Israeli authorities cut off the power supply and fuel reserves ran out.

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