GAZA: The Gaza Strip's health ministry said war with Israel has killed more than 21,320, as Israel kept pounding the besieged territory with air strikes and shelling.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Gazans were in grave peril after more than 11 weeks of fighting which left most hospitals in the Palestinian territory out of action and led to "acute hunger".
Explosions lit up the sky over the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis — a focus of heavy urban combat since the Israeli army said it had largely gained control over Gaza's north.
The Gaza health ministry said a strike hit a house near Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis, killing 22 people. Heavy firefights also raged again around Gaza City in the north.
Gaza's spiralling humanitarian crisis has amplified calls for an end to the hostilities. In a statement, the WHO said "hungry people again stopped our convoys... in the hope of finding food".
"WHO's ability to supply medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to hospitals is being increasingly constrained by the hunger and desperation of people en route to, and within, hospitals we reach."
Displaced Gazans "don't know where to go", said one who declined to be named. "First, we're displaced to Nuseirat, then to Rafah." "A solution must be reached... Implement a ceasefire instead of bringing in aid," he added.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas charged in a television interview that the war "goes beyond a catastrophe and a genocide". "Netanyahu's plan is to get rid of the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority," said Abbas, who is based in the occupied West Bank.
The UN Security Council called in a resolution last week for the "safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale". The resolution, which did not call for an immediate end to the fighting, effectively leaves Israel with operational oversight of aid deliveries.
In the far-southern city of Rafah, hundreds turned up at the Abdul Salam Yassin water company with baskets, handcarts and even a wheelchair stacked with empty bottles to get clean water. "This was my father's cart," said Rafah resident Amir al-Zahhar. "He was martyred during the war. He used it to transport and sell fish, and now we are using it to transport fresh water."
Elsewhere in Rafah, people split logs and stacked kindling as the lack of fuel forced them to burn wood for cooking and to keep warm. — AFP
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