UN Satellite Centre reveals 30% of Gaza destroyed or damaged

“In total, a staggering 69,147 structures, equivalent to approximately 30 percent of the Gaza Strip’s total structures, are affected,” UNOSAT said.

The UN centre added that Gaza City and Khan Younis have seen the most significant increases in damage, with 10,280 and 11,894 damaged structures respectively, since their previous analysis on 26 November.

According to UNOSAT, an estimated 93,800 housing units have been damaged in Gaza.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also said on Friday more than 8,000 people in the Gaza Strip need medical evacuation and the vast majority of them have war-related injuries.

“Medical referrals for critically injured and sick patients outside Gaza remain ad hoc and insufficient. An orderly, safe and sustained transfer of patients to Egypt and possibly to other locations via Egypt is needed,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in occupied Palestinian territories, told a press conference in Geneva via video link.

Peeperkorn added that 6,000 of those people who need referrals have war-related injuries, while 2,000 have other medical conditions.

Since the war began, he said that a total of 1,243 patients – 790 injured and 445 ill – along with 1025 companions were sent abroad through Rafah.

The WHO added that more than 100,000 Gazans are injured, missing or presumed dead as the situation deteriorates in the enclave. The figure makes up 4.3 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.

Israel has killed more than 27,000 people in the Gaza Strip in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border offensive by Hamas, which took the lives of 1,200 people and took 250 as hostages.

The military onslaught has caused mass displacement and destruction and created conditions for famine.