Kathmandu, Sept 17: Around 48,000 people have fled Gaza City in just two days as Israeli ground operations intensify, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday.

OCHA said that from mid-August to Monday it recorded more than 190,000 instances of displacement. Many families — especially those headed by women or elderly relatives and including injured children — are walking for up to nine hours because transport is either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. Witnesses say some people are travelling barefoot under scorching conditions.

In response, OCHA’s partner organisations have delivered emergency support including drinking water, basic health care and psychosocial assistance to over 1,500 displaced people, among them more than 900 children.

The Israeli military has been distributing leaflets declaring Gaza City a “dangerous war zone” and urging civilians to move to what it calls “humanitarian areas” in southern and central Gaza. However, ongoing airstrikes and shelling have struck many of those zones as well, leading to mounting civilian casualties.

“We have no money, and my father’s health is poor. There is no safe place in Gaza; he will have to sleep on the streets tonight,” said Ala Ismail, one of the displaced. Khalil Matar, another evacuee from Arca, added: “Even the places that Israel calls ‘safe zones’ become targets of attacks when Israel wants to.”

According to Gaza’s government communications office, about 800,000 people have now gathered in the al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza, which Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone.” Yet officials say more than 2,000 people have been killed and over 109 others injured in Israeli strikes there, underscoring the dire humanitarian situation as the fighting escalates.