The situation in the Gaza Strip is getting worse all the time and approaching humanity's "darkest hour", the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group's October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and which saw around 240 hostages taken back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas and secure the release of all the hostages. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the war has killed nearly 15,900 people in the territory.
Here are some of the key concerns being raised by the WHO and other United Nations agencies:
- Situation in southern Gaza -
Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO's representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva Tuesday, via video link from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, that the number of people on the move from central and southern Gaza was "vastly increasing".
Israeli forces battled Hamas militants in southern Gaza on Tuesday, with fighting pushing civilians into a steadily shrinking area of the besieged Palestinian enclave.
After initially focusing on northern Gaza, the Israeli army has now sent ground forces into the south and urged civilians to evacuate.
"The situation is getting worse by the hour. There is intensified bombing going on all around, including here in the southern areas," said Peeperkorn.
"A lot of people are desperate and almost in a permanent state of shock".
"We are close by humanity's darkest hour," Peeperkorn said.
"These bombings and the senseless loss of life must stop now, and we need a sustained ceasefire."
- WHO warehouses -
Early in the conflict, the WHO established two adjacent warehouses in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza but said Tuesday it had to find a smaller one in Rafah after being advised to move by Israel's military.
"We comply because we want to make sure that you can actually deliver essential medical supplies," said Peeperkorn.
The WHO managed to scramble out 90 percent of the stockpile in "a panic movement".
"And we had to abort the mission we were planning to do to bring supplies to the hospitals.
"This... should be our top priority, to get a sustained line of the most essential medical supplies, trauma supplies, essential drugs into Gaza," and then distribute it to health facilities.
He said the amount of aid that the WHO had been able to bring into Gaza was "way too little".
"For this kind of humanitarian disaster, where we are in an increasing disaster, we need much more supplies and equipment in," he said.
- Beds and diseases -
Eighteen of the Gaza Strip's 36 hospitals are still functioning in any capacity: three are providing basic first aid only, while the rest are delivering partial services. Twelve of the 18 are in the south.
There are 1,400 hospital beds still available in the Gaza Strip. The WHO says 5,000 are needed.
Peeperkorn said that since the start of the war, there had been 120,000 acute respiratory infections; close to 26,000 people with scabies and lice; 86,000 cases of diarrhoea, including 44,000 among children aged under five, which he said was 20 to 30 times higher than could be expected.
Meanwhile some 1,150 cases of jaundice have been recorded, along with cases of chicken pox, skin rashes and meningitis.
- Safe zones and sanitation -
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, said that with the population on the move, in two hours "there are 5,000 people where there was no-one previously. Critically in these places, there's no sanitation."
Speaking from Cairo after returning from Gaza, he said that in one shelter in Gaza, where 30,000 people were seeking refuge, there was one toilet for roughly every 400 people, meaning queues of up to five hours.
Israel directing civilians towards zones it has designated as safe -- but which have no toilets or clean water -- is creating "the perfect storm for disease outbreak", said Elder.
"Israel is the occupying power: it's they who have to provide food, water, medicine," he added.
WHO empties aid warehouse in southern Gaza after Israeli army 'advice'
The World Health Organization on Tuesday said that it had almost completely emptied its aid warehouses in southern Gaza after being "advised" by Israel's army that "active combat" was looming.
Israel has denied that it ordered the WHO to empty its two warehouses in Khan Yunis, as claimed by the head of the UN health agency.
Asked about the discrepancy in accounts, Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories, acknowledged that no official order had been given, but said his staff had been "advised" to swiftly remove their stocks from the warehouses.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva via video-link from southern Gaza, Peeperkorn said the advice had been given orally to his team, and that "there's no paperwork on this".
After initially focusing its assault on the north of the war-torn territory, the Israeli army has now sent ground forces into the south and dropped leaflets telling Palestinian civilians in more districts to evacuate.
Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group's October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and that saw around 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli authorities.
In retaliation for the worst attack in its history, Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas and secure the release of all the hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the war has killed nearly 15,900 people in the territory, around 70 percent of them women and children.
Peeperkorn explained that the WHO on Sunday had informed the Israeli army that it intended to move supplies out of the warehouses to assist a Doctors Without Borders team and also to provide assistance to UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees.
"Then yesterday morning, we were informed that you better remove as much as possible... Your warehouses are in an area where the population was told to evacuate, and which would most likely become an area of active combat in the coming days," he said.
"When you are advised by an army that... you have 24 hours and after that... it's very unlikely you can reach your warehouse, of course you comply," Peeperkorn said.
"We took out almost 90 percent of the supplies," he said. "It was a panic movement."
The supplies have been moved to a single warehouse in Rafah.
US aid chief announces new help on visit near Gaza border
The US aid chief on Tuesday announced new support for the war-battered Gaza Strip on a visit to Egypt, as a renewed Israeli offensive again puts Palestinians at risk.
Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, travelled to the Egyptian town of El-Arish, the gateway to Rafah, the border crossing that has been reopened but at limited capacity since the war started.
Power announced $21 million in new US assistance that will include hygiene and shelter supplies and food for people in Gaza, where water and other basics have been in short supply.
USAID said the assistance was in addition to $100 million announced by President Joe Biden on October 18.
Power accompanied the delivery by the US military of another 16.3 metric tonnes (36,000 pounds) of previously announced assistance that includes medical supplies, winter clothing and emergency food.
"The United States continues to work around the clock to overcome diplomatic and operational hurdles for humanitarian access, present solutions to emerging humanitarian assistance challenges and significantly scale up this response to where it needs to be," USAID said in a statement.
But the United States has also faced strong criticism in the Arab world for its military and diplomatic support of Israel, which has carried out a major offensive in response to an October 7 attack by Hamas, the Islamist militants who control the Gaza Strip.
The United States says it has pleaded with Israel to do more to protect civilians and to allow humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip.
The State Department said Monday that Israel, after US appeals, began to let badly needed fuel into the Gaza Strip.
Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and has carried out air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed around 15,900 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.