The mayor of Deir al-Balah has warned that the city can no longer take in displaced families as the bombardment continues to force tens of thousands from their homes. Nizar Ayash said there is not a single space left to set up another tent, with the coastline now crammed with families and the eastern districts unsafe under constant airstrikes.

He described a city on the edge of collapse, where infrastructure is crumbling and the local desalination plant fails to provide enough water for the soaring population. Daily survival is becoming impossible, he said, as the pressure of mass displacement pushes the community to breaking point.

Ayash stressed that the crisis unfolding in Deir al-Balah mirrors the wider disaster engulfing central Gaza. Without immediate and meaningful aid, he warned, the situation risks descending into a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe.