Accounts of stray dogs eating dead bodies in the streets, constant ear-splitting bombardments, and the appalling signs of widespread starvation are emerging from the Jabalya region of Gaza where Israel continues to target Hamas militants, according to a report by CNN.
Fares Afana, the head of emergency services in northern Gaza, told CNN that he and his fellow workers have received the bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza whose bodies showed signs of being scavenged by animals.
"Stray dogs who are hungry are eating these bodies in the street. ... It makes it difficult for us to identify the bodies," Afana said.
He showed the outlet a photo of a young boy whose body was partially devoured by stray dogs.
"You can see the signs of hunger on the people in northern Gaza," Afana said. "Israeli forces are destroying everything that represents life or signs of life."
"Thousands of children" and pregnant women are trapped in the area around Jabalya as Israel has conducted air and ground attacks over the past 12 days, he said.
On Thursday, at least 28 people, including children, were killed when a school in northern Gaza was struck, the Gaza health ministry told Reuters.
"There is no water to extinguish the fire. There is nothing. This is a massacre," health official Medhat Abbas said. "Civilians and children are being killed, burned under fire."
The Israel Defense Forces, which has claimed it is rooting out Hamas fighters in the region, said militants from Hamas and other Islamic Jihad groups were operating out of the school that also served as a shelter for displaced people.
The IDF said it took precautions not to harm civilians, while adding that the fighters were using the people as human shields.
The continuing military operations have displaced at least 50,000 people in Jabalya, while "others remain stranded in their homes amid increased bombardment and fighting," the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement on Sunday.
"Civilians must be protected, and their basic needs must be met. Multiple entry routes must open for critical supplies and safe humanitarian response needs to be provided to people in need wherever they are," the statement said.
The UN said the Israeli military has left the people in Gaza with a grim choice.
"Civilians are given no choice but to either starve or leave," Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN's agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), said in a statement on Monday, CNN reported. "In Gaza, too many red lines have been crossed. What might constitute war crimes can still be prevented."
The Israeli agency that organizes aid delivery to Gaza said Israel "is not preventing the entry of humanitarian aid," pointing out that 30 trucks entered northern Gaza on Monday, CNN reported.
Afana claimed Israeli forces fired on desperate residents looking for food at an aid center operated by UNRWA.
"The situation is getting worse," he said.
Ambulances have been struck by shrapnel from Israeli shelling near Yemen al-Sa'eed Hospital, in Jabalya, Afana said, displaying video of an bullet-scarred ambulance with crushed tires.
"For the paramedics, it is also very dangerous to reach this area ... as a result of the roads being blown up and direct fire from the Israeli military on our vehicles," he said.
"What is happening in northern Gaza is a real genocide," he continued. "We can't do our job normally."
A resident of the neighborhood said the only thing left in an area that was once brimming with life is destruction.
"The question is where and how can the people leave?" the 23-year-old Palestinian man told CNN. "The place they remain in, despite all the destruction, consists of simple tents they set up from the rubble of their homes. Where will the people go?"
