More over 260,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strips, which remains under siege and battered by Israeli airstrikes, according to the latest figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“Over 263,934 people in Gaza have been forced to flee their homes,” OCHA said in a statement on Tuesday, warning that it expected the number to “continue to increase”. He added that another 3,000 people had already been displaced “due to previous escalations” before Saturday.

After the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on Saturday and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government declared war, the death toll has exceeded 3,600, including civilians, Israeli soldiers. and Palestinian fighters.

The Israeli military has been carrying out wide-scale operations since Saturday, including hundreds of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip that destroyed buildings it described as Hamas “command centers”.

The bombing destroyed over 1,000 buildings, while another 560, which suffered extensive damage, are now uninhabitable, according to OCHA, which cites the Palestinian Authority.

Nearly 175,500 displaced people have taken shelter in 88 school buildings managed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), OCHA added.

Other displaced people – more than 14,500 – have found shelter in 12 public schools, while, always according to OCHA’s estimates, almost 74,000 are being hosted by relatives or neighbors and many more in places of worship.

This is the highest number of internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip “since the 50-day escalation (during) hostilities in 2014,” the UN agency said.

Moreover, meeting even basic needs is “becoming increasingly complex” for everyone in the Gaza Strip, not just the displaced, OCHA warned.