How inequality hits the rich as well as the poor
What did you think of the Jeff Bezos wedding, where he and his bride, Lauren Sanchez, took over the city of Venice in a festival of extravagance (accompanied by an army of security guards to keep the hoi polloi away)?
Personally, I thought it was gross. It reminded me of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's great novel turned into a great film.
There is a line in it about the hyper-rich: "They were careless people," Fitzgerald wrote.
"They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Careless people who retreated into their enclaves and let the common people sort out the mess, is a thought for our times as the power of the rich seems completely unconstrained.
When Donald Trump came up with his plan in February for a Riviera of the Middle East in Gaza, I assumed it was some sort of Trumpian "joke" - just a daft suggestion to annoy the chattering classes.
But it turns out it was real. The Financial Times has seen the presentation slides. "Titled the 'Great Trust' and shared with the Trump administration, it proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza," it reported.
"The plan also envisages what the authors called the Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands, 'world-class resorts along the coastline and on small artificial islands similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai'."
We are now in a new Gilded Age, where the very wealthy flaunt extravagant lifestyles as they did from the 1870s until the new century.
It's not just in America. In Australia, the gap between rich and poor is widening.
"Australia is becoming more unfair and more unequal. Our research shows that the wealthiest Australians now have 90 times more wealth than those with the least - and that gap is widening every year," Anglicare's director Kasy Chambers said after the organisation had studied the matter.
Should those of us who are comfortable worry? As concerned, caring citizens, of course, we should - but beyond that? Does it have any real consequences?
It does. The research shows that the more unequal a society is, the worse a raft of bad consequences are, and these bad consequences affect everyone, including the very rich who might imagine they can isolate themselves in gated communities and private jets.
A marvellous book, The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, says that unequal societies have higher levels of violence, mental illness, drug abuse, obesity, and poor educational achievement.
Moreover, these bad effects affect the rich as well as those down the scale. The rich in unequal societies suffer more stress than the rich in more equal societies. They are more prone to depression. They are more likely to be victims of crime.
When we all feel like we're in the same boat, we feel better and behave better.
When we are not, community spirit withers.
Bad things happen. Obvious, really.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is it obvious? Let me know what you think. How does inequality cost all of us something? What should be done about it? What did you think of the Bezos wedding? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Erin Patterson was found guilty of three murders and one attempted murder after three members of her family died from death cap mushroom poisoning in August 2023. The 50-year-old invited her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, to lunch on July 29, 2023.
- The former police officer who fatally shot an Indigenous teenager in a remote community was racist, a coroner has found, and those attitudes were reflective of an institution that tolerated racism.
Mr Walker was shot three times at close range by then-constable Zachary Rolfe at a home in Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, in November 2019.
- A woman in her 50s who was mauled by an African lion in a "horrific" attack lost her arm in the incident at Darling Downs Zoo in Pilton, a small town in Queensland's Toowoomba region.
THEY SAID IT: "New money shouts. Old money whispers," Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
YOU SAID IT: I opined that AI couldn't create music I would want to listen to. Music wasn't just a string of notes, I thought. It needed human experience behind it.
Sue disagreed: "As I understand AI music, it is composed from past human experience, and if that is the case, then the notes and words are based on previous emotions. As for wedding poetry, if the words resonate with the bride and groom, isn't that enough?"
Philip leaned towards my view: "AI will only ever repeat the past because that's where it gets its data. It can never develop a new style. It can never innovate."
Elaine said: "AI is mimicry, so who gets sued for copyright? It is cheating original artists of their work without consequences, I say NO to AI's use of other people's talent without their permission."
I had disagreed with Garry, who had more time for AI-generated music.
"Sorry, Garry, Steve is right," Patricia said. "Music comes from the heart, the soul, the guts. It comes from human experience."
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
What did you think of the Jeff Bezos wedding, where he and his bride, Lauren Sanchez, took over the city of Venice in a festival of extravagance (accompanied by an army of security guards to keep the hoi polloi away)?
Personally, I thought it was gross. It reminded me of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's great novel turned into a great film.
There is a line in it about the hyper-rich: "They were careless people," Fitzgerald wrote.
"They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Careless people who retreated into their enclaves and let the common people sort out the mess, is a thought for our times as the power of the rich seems completely unconstrained.
When Donald Trump came up with his plan in February for a Riviera of the Middle East in Gaza, I assumed it was some sort of Trumpian "joke" - just a daft suggestion to annoy the chattering classes.
But it turns out it was real. The Financial Times has seen the presentation slides. "Titled the 'Great Trust' and shared with the Trump administration, it proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza," it reported.
"The plan also envisages what the authors called the Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands, 'world-class resorts along the coastline and on small artificial islands similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai'."
We are now in a new Gilded Age, where the very wealthy flaunt extravagant lifestyles as they did from the 1870s until the new century.
It's not just in America. In Australia, the gap between rich and poor is widening.
"Australia is becoming more unfair and more unequal. Our research shows that the wealthiest Australians now have 90 times more wealth than those with the least - and that gap is widening every year," Anglicare's director Kasy Chambers said after the organisation had studied the matter.
Should those of us who are comfortable worry? As concerned, caring citizens, of course, we should - but beyond that? Does it have any real consequences?
It does. The research shows that the more unequal a society is, the worse a raft of bad consequences are, and these bad consequences affect everyone, including the very rich who might imagine they can isolate themselves in gated communities and private jets.
A marvellous book, The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, says that unequal societies have higher levels of violence, mental illness, drug abuse, obesity, and poor educational achievement.
Moreover, these bad effects affect the rich as well as those down the scale. The rich in unequal societies suffer more stress than the rich in more equal societies. They are more prone to depression. They are more likely to be victims of crime.
When we all feel like we're in the same boat, we feel better and behave better.
When we are not, community spirit withers.
Bad things happen. Obvious, really.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is it obvious? Let me know what you think. How does inequality cost all of us something? What should be done about it? What did you think of the Bezos wedding? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Erin Patterson was found guilty of three murders and one attempted murder after three members of her family died from death cap mushroom poisoning in August 2023. The 50-year-old invited her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, to lunch on July 29, 2023.
- The former police officer who fatally shot an Indigenous teenager in a remote community was racist, a coroner has found, and those attitudes were reflective of an institution that tolerated racism.
Mr Walker was shot three times at close range by then-constable Zachary Rolfe at a home in Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, in November 2019.
- A woman in her 50s who was mauled by an African lion in a "horrific" attack lost her arm in the incident at Darling Downs Zoo in Pilton, a small town in Queensland's Toowoomba region.
THEY SAID IT: "New money shouts. Old money whispers," Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
YOU SAID IT: I opined that AI couldn't create music I would want to listen to. Music wasn't just a string of notes, I thought. It needed human experience behind it.
Sue disagreed: "As I understand AI music, it is composed from past human experience, and if that is the case, then the notes and words are based on previous emotions. As for wedding poetry, if the words resonate with the bride and groom, isn't that enough?"
Philip leaned towards my view: "AI will only ever repeat the past because that's where it gets its data. It can never develop a new style. It can never innovate."
Elaine said: "AI is mimicry, so who gets sued for copyright? It is cheating original artists of their work without consequences, I say NO to AI's use of other people's talent without their permission."
I had disagreed with Garry, who had more time for AI-generated music.
"Sorry, Garry, Steve is right," Patricia said. "Music comes from the heart, the soul, the guts. It comes from human experience."
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
What did you think of the Jeff Bezos wedding, where he and his bride, Lauren Sanchez, took over the city of Venice in a festival of extravagance (accompanied by an army of security guards to keep the hoi polloi away)?
Personally, I thought it was gross. It reminded me of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's great novel turned into a great film.
There is a line in it about the hyper-rich: "They were careless people," Fitzgerald wrote.
"They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Careless people who retreated into their enclaves and let the common people sort out the mess, is a thought for our times as the power of the rich seems completely unconstrained.
When Donald Trump came up with his plan in February for a Riviera of the Middle East in Gaza, I assumed it was some sort of Trumpian "joke" - just a daft suggestion to annoy the chattering classes.
But it turns out it was real. The Financial Times has seen the presentation slides. "Titled the 'Great Trust' and shared with the Trump administration, it proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza," it reported.
"The plan also envisages what the authors called the Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands, 'world-class resorts along the coastline and on small artificial islands similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai'."
We are now in a new Gilded Age, where the very wealthy flaunt extravagant lifestyles as they did from the 1870s until the new century.
It's not just in America. In Australia, the gap between rich and poor is widening.
"Australia is becoming more unfair and more unequal. Our research shows that the wealthiest Australians now have 90 times more wealth than those with the least - and that gap is widening every year," Anglicare's director Kasy Chambers said after the organisation had studied the matter.
Should those of us who are comfortable worry? As concerned, caring citizens, of course, we should - but beyond that? Does it have any real consequences?
It does. The research shows that the more unequal a society is, the worse a raft of bad consequences are, and these bad consequences affect everyone, including the very rich who might imagine they can isolate themselves in gated communities and private jets.
A marvellous book, The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, says that unequal societies have higher levels of violence, mental illness, drug abuse, obesity, and poor educational achievement.
Moreover, these bad effects affect the rich as well as those down the scale. The rich in unequal societies suffer more stress than the rich in more equal societies. They are more prone to depression. They are more likely to be victims of crime.
When we all feel like we're in the same boat, we feel better and behave better.
When we are not, community spirit withers.
Bad things happen. Obvious, really.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is it obvious? Let me know what you think. How does inequality cost all of us something? What should be done about it? What did you think of the Bezos wedding? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Erin Patterson was found guilty of three murders and one attempted murder after three members of her family died from death cap mushroom poisoning in August 2023. The 50-year-old invited her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, to lunch on July 29, 2023.
- The former police officer who fatally shot an Indigenous teenager in a remote community was racist, a coroner has found, and those attitudes were reflective of an institution that tolerated racism.
Mr Walker was shot three times at close range by then-constable Zachary Rolfe at a home in Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, in November 2019.
- A woman in her 50s who was mauled by an African lion in a "horrific" attack lost her arm in the incident at Darling Downs Zoo in Pilton, a small town in Queensland's Toowoomba region.
THEY SAID IT: "New money shouts. Old money whispers," Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
YOU SAID IT: I opined that AI couldn't create music I would want to listen to. Music wasn't just a string of notes, I thought. It needed human experience behind it.
Sue disagreed: "As I understand AI music, it is composed from past human experience, and if that is the case, then the notes and words are based on previous emotions. As for wedding poetry, if the words resonate with the bride and groom, isn't that enough?"
Philip leaned towards my view: "AI will only ever repeat the past because that's where it gets its data. It can never develop a new style. It can never innovate."
Elaine said: "AI is mimicry, so who gets sued for copyright? It is cheating original artists of their work without consequences, I say NO to AI's use of other people's talent without their permission."
I had disagreed with Garry, who had more time for AI-generated music.
"Sorry, Garry, Steve is right," Patricia said. "Music comes from the heart, the soul, the guts. It comes from human experience."
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
What did you think of the Jeff Bezos wedding, where he and his bride, Lauren Sanchez, took over the city of Venice in a festival of extravagance (accompanied by an army of security guards to keep the hoi polloi away)?
Personally, I thought it was gross. It reminded me of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's great novel turned into a great film.
There is a line in it about the hyper-rich: "They were careless people," Fitzgerald wrote.
"They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Careless people who retreated into their enclaves and let the common people sort out the mess, is a thought for our times as the power of the rich seems completely unconstrained.
When Donald Trump came up with his plan in February for a Riviera of the Middle East in Gaza, I assumed it was some sort of Trumpian "joke" - just a daft suggestion to annoy the chattering classes.
But it turns out it was real. The Financial Times has seen the presentation slides. "Titled the 'Great Trust' and shared with the Trump administration, it proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza," it reported.
"The plan also envisages what the authors called the Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands, 'world-class resorts along the coastline and on small artificial islands similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai'."
We are now in a new Gilded Age, where the very wealthy flaunt extravagant lifestyles as they did from the 1870s until the new century.
It's not just in America. In Australia, the gap between rich and poor is widening.
"Australia is becoming more unfair and more unequal. Our research shows that the wealthiest Australians now have 90 times more wealth than those with the least - and that gap is widening every year," Anglicare's director Kasy Chambers said after the organisation had studied the matter.
Should those of us who are comfortable worry? As concerned, caring citizens, of course, we should - but beyond that? Does it have any real consequences?
It does. The research shows that the more unequal a society is, the worse a raft of bad consequences are, and these bad consequences affect everyone, including the very rich who might imagine they can isolate themselves in gated communities and private jets.
A marvellous book, The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, says that unequal societies have higher levels of violence, mental illness, drug abuse, obesity, and poor educational achievement.
Moreover, these bad effects affect the rich as well as those down the scale. The rich in unequal societies suffer more stress than the rich in more equal societies. They are more prone to depression. They are more likely to be victims of crime.
When we all feel like we're in the same boat, we feel better and behave better.
When we are not, community spirit withers.
Bad things happen. Obvious, really.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is it obvious? Let me know what you think. How does inequality cost all of us something? What should be done about it? What did you think of the Bezos wedding? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Erin Patterson was found guilty of three murders and one attempted murder after three members of her family died from death cap mushroom poisoning in August 2023. The 50-year-old invited her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, to lunch on July 29, 2023.
- The former police officer who fatally shot an Indigenous teenager in a remote community was racist, a coroner has found, and those attitudes were reflective of an institution that tolerated racism.
Mr Walker was shot three times at close range by then-constable Zachary Rolfe at a home in Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, in November 2019.
- A woman in her 50s who was mauled by an African lion in a "horrific" attack lost her arm in the incident at Darling Downs Zoo in Pilton, a small town in Queensland's Toowoomba region.
THEY SAID IT: "New money shouts. Old money whispers," Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
YOU SAID IT: I opined that AI couldn't create music I would want to listen to. Music wasn't just a string of notes, I thought. It needed human experience behind it.
Sue disagreed: "As I understand AI music, it is composed from past human experience, and if that is the case, then the notes and words are based on previous emotions. As for wedding poetry, if the words resonate with the bride and groom, isn't that enough?"
Philip leaned towards my view: "AI will only ever repeat the past because that's where it gets its data. It can never develop a new style. It can never innovate."
Elaine said: "AI is mimicry, so who gets sued for copyright? It is cheating original artists of their work without consequences, I say NO to AI's use of other people's talent without their permission."
I had disagreed with Garry, who had more time for AI-generated music.
"Sorry, Garry, Steve is right," Patricia said. "Music comes from the heart, the soul, the guts. It comes from human experience."
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Shortly after crossing through the northern Zikim crossing into Gaza, a 25-truck convoy from the World Food Programme (WFP) encountered large crowds of civilians waiting to access food supplies, the UN agency said on social media platform X. "As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire." The incident, on Sunday morning local time, resulted in the loss of "countless lives" with many more suffering critical injuries, the WFP said. "These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation. This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza." Local health authorities reported 67 Palestinians were killed, while Palestinian news agency WAFA reported 58 dead and at least 60 injured. The Israeli military said warning shots had been fired amid "an imminent threat" and expressed doubts about the reported casualty figures. The details of the incident are currently being investigated, the military said, but added an initial review indicated that the reported casualty figures do not match the information provided by the army. The information could not be independently verified at first. WAFA, citing medical sources, reported that 132 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including 94 aid seekers. The UN and aid organisations report catastrophic conditions in the Gaza Strip, whose almost two million residents are almost entirely dependent on aid to survive. Gaza residents have been subjected to almost 22 months of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to UN figures, hundreds have died in the vicinity of aid distribution points and around aid convoys since the end of May. WAFA put the death toll from Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 at at least 58,895, with more than 140,980 injured. The agency cites Palestinian medical sources for its figures. The Israeli army is expanding its operations in the city of Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from an army spokesman, who called on residents to leave the area in a post in Arabic on X. The Israeli military continues "to operate with intensity to eliminate terrorists and to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area and is expanding its activities into new areas," the army said in a statement. "For your safety, immediately evacuate southward toward Al-Mawasi." Al-Mawasi in the south-west of the embattled area was designated by Israel as a "humanitarian zone" earlier in the war. However, the Israeli military has since also attacked there multiple times. The army said targets included facilities of Hamas. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned the mass displacement order had dealt "yet another devastating blow" to the Gaza Strip. Initial estimates indicated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area at the time the order was issued, including some 30,000 people sheltering in 57 displacement sites, the UN office said. The newly designated area included several humanitarian warehouses, four primary health clinics, four medical points, and critical water infrastructure, it said. "Any damage to this infrastructure will have life-threatening consequences." A large number of starving people in the Gaza Strip have been killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks, the Rome-based World Food Programme says. Shortly after crossing through the northern Zikim crossing into Gaza, a 25-truck convoy from the World Food Programme (WFP) encountered large crowds of civilians waiting to access food supplies, the UN agency said on social media platform X. "As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire." The incident, on Sunday morning local time, resulted in the loss of "countless lives" with many more suffering critical injuries, the WFP said. "These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation. This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza." Local health authorities reported 67 Palestinians were killed, while Palestinian news agency WAFA reported 58 dead and at least 60 injured. The Israeli military said warning shots had been fired amid "an imminent threat" and expressed doubts about the reported casualty figures. The details of the incident are currently being investigated, the military said, but added an initial review indicated that the reported casualty figures do not match the information provided by the army. The information could not be independently verified at first. WAFA, citing medical sources, reported that 132 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including 94 aid seekers. The UN and aid organisations report catastrophic conditions in the Gaza Strip, whose almost two million residents are almost entirely dependent on aid to survive. Gaza residents have been subjected to almost 22 months of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to UN figures, hundreds have died in the vicinity of aid distribution points and around aid convoys since the end of May. WAFA put the death toll from Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 at at least 58,895, with more than 140,980 injured. The agency cites Palestinian medical sources for its figures. The Israeli army is expanding its operations in the city of Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from an army spokesman, who called on residents to leave the area in a post in Arabic on X. The Israeli military continues "to operate with intensity to eliminate terrorists and to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area and is expanding its activities into new areas," the army said in a statement. "For your safety, immediately evacuate southward toward Al-Mawasi." Al-Mawasi in the south-west of the embattled area was designated by Israel as a "humanitarian zone" earlier in the war. However, the Israeli military has since also attacked there multiple times. The army said targets included facilities of Hamas. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned the mass displacement order had dealt "yet another devastating blow" to the Gaza Strip. Initial estimates indicated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area at the time the order was issued, including some 30,000 people sheltering in 57 displacement sites, the UN office said. The newly designated area included several humanitarian warehouses, four primary health clinics, four medical points, and critical water infrastructure, it said. "Any damage to this infrastructure will have life-threatening consequences." A large number of starving people in the Gaza Strip have been killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks, the Rome-based World Food Programme says. Shortly after crossing through the northern Zikim crossing into Gaza, a 25-truck convoy from the World Food Programme (WFP) encountered large crowds of civilians waiting to access food supplies, the UN agency said on social media platform X. "As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire." The incident, on Sunday morning local time, resulted in the loss of "countless lives" with many more suffering critical injuries, the WFP said. "These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation. This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza." Local health authorities reported 67 Palestinians were killed, while Palestinian news agency WAFA reported 58 dead and at least 60 injured. The Israeli military said warning shots had been fired amid "an imminent threat" and expressed doubts about the reported casualty figures. The details of the incident are currently being investigated, the military said, but added an initial review indicated that the reported casualty figures do not match the information provided by the army. The information could not be independently verified at first. WAFA, citing medical sources, reported that 132 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including 94 aid seekers. The UN and aid organisations report catastrophic conditions in the Gaza Strip, whose almost two million residents are almost entirely dependent on aid to survive. Gaza residents have been subjected to almost 22 months of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to UN figures, hundreds have died in the vicinity of aid distribution points and around aid convoys since the end of May. WAFA put the death toll from Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 at at least 58,895, with more than 140,980 injured. The agency cites Palestinian medical sources for its figures. The Israeli army is expanding its operations in the city of Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from an army spokesman, who called on residents to leave the area in a post in Arabic on X. The Israeli military continues "to operate with intensity to eliminate terrorists and to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area and is expanding its activities into new areas," the army said in a statement. "For your safety, immediately evacuate southward toward Al-Mawasi." Al-Mawasi in the south-west of the embattled area was designated by Israel as a "humanitarian zone" earlier in the war. However, the Israeli military has since also attacked there multiple times. The army said targets included facilities of Hamas. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned the mass displacement order had dealt "yet another devastating blow" to the Gaza Strip. Initial estimates indicated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area at the time the order was issued, including some 30,000 people sheltering in 57 displacement sites, the UN office said. The newly designated area included several humanitarian warehouses, four primary health clinics, four medical points, and critical water infrastructure, it said. "Any damage to this infrastructure will have life-threatening consequences."
