Relief efforts in Gaza will be forced to stop unless fuel supplies reach the besieged territory, the main UN agency working in the strip has warned.
Hospitals, bakeries and water pumps may also cease to function, compounding a humanitarian crisis that is worsening by the hour, the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said. “We need to find a solution to the fuel – otherwise our aid operation will come to a stop.”
Oxfam accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians, saying the enclave was receiving just 2% of its usual supply of food. “The situation is nothing short of horrific – where is humanity?” said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s regional Middle East director.
Nearly 600,000 people displaced from their homes by Israeli bombardments are sheltering in 150 Unrwa facilities that are four times over their capacity, leaving people to sleep on the streets. Winding down relief would eliminate a “lifeline” for civilians, Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, told CNN.
Without fuel, water cannot be pumped or desalinated, leaving people to drink dirty water. Fuel is also needed for hospital generators, and scarcity has already forced six hospitals to shut. The 2.3 million-strong population is estimated to need at least 160,000 litres of fuel a day.
The dire warnings came amid continued airstrikes that pushed the total death toll in Gaza since 7 October past 6,500, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Late on Wednesday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that his forces were still preparing for a ground invasion of the embattled territory, adding that the timing would be decided by the government’s special war cabinet.
His comments came after the Wall Street Journal reported that US officials had so far persuaded Israel to hold off on the offensive until air-defence systems can be rushed into place to protect US troops in the region. Israel was also taking into account international efforts to get emergency aid into Gaza, as well as diplomatic efforts to free hostages held by Hamas – but the protection of US troops was of “paramount” importance, the WSJ reported.
A blast in the southern city of Rafah flipped and crumpled cars and left tattered clothing hanging on tree branches, while in the nearby city of Khan Younis a worker waded through ruins and extracted a dead baby, the Associated Press reported. A Hamas official said a strike killed 10 people at a bakery in a refugee camp in Deir al-Balah.
Some Palestinians have started wearing distinctive bracelets to facilitate identification if they are dismembered. “If something happens this way I will recognise them,” Ali El-Daba, 40, who has given blue string bracelets to family members, told Reuters. Other families have made their own bracelets or written their names on their arms.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have blocked fuel and other supplies, saying Hamas would use them, and accused the group of hoarding Gaza’s remaining fuel supplies.
On Tuesday it published photos purportedly showing fuel tanks controlled by Hamas. “This is what over half a million litres of diesel looks like while Hamas keeps claiming it does not have enough fuel to support hospitals and bakeries,” tweeted an IDF spokesperson.
Doctors, health administrators and international aid organisations have described nightmarish conditions in Gaza, including doctors forced to operate with little or no anaesthesia, or by the light of mobile phones, and using vinegar in some cases in place of antiseptic.
In the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, people lined up to buy bread. One man, Mohammed Assar, 58, said 35 people from his extended family were living in his home, and they were cooking with firewood.
“This is our life every day for two weeks – looking for bread, filling up with water when [the trucks] come every two days, listening to the radio trying to hear some news and what’s going on around us, no electricity to charge devices,” he said.
A trickle of medical supplies has been allowed over the Egypt-Gaza border in recent days but Israel refuses to allow them to be distributed in the north, where most of the hospitals are, because it wants northern Gaza evacuated before a planned ground offensive.
Pope Francis called for the release of the hostages in Gaza and the entry of more humanitarian aid but a diplomatic row between Israel and the UN dimmed any prospect of a deal.
Israel said it has refused a visa to the UN’s humanitarian affairs chief, Martin Griffiths, in protest against comments by the secretary general, António Guterres. “Due to his remarks we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives,” Israel’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, told Israeli army radio. “The time has come to teach them a lesson.”
Guterres on Tuesday condemned the murderous Hamas onslaught of 7 October as “appalling” – it killed more than 1,400 Israelis – but said it did not happen in a vacuum and cited Israel’s treatment of Palestinians over the past five decades. He called for an immediate ceasefire, citing “epic suffering”.
He also said “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas”.
“I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel,” he said. “Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.”
The row came amid concern the conflict may spread. Since Gaza erupted, more than 90 people have been killed and 1,200 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank, prompting warnings it will “ignite”.
Israeli strikes killed eight soldiers in southern Syria on Wednesday in what Israel said was a response to rocket fire. In the past two weeks, there have also been rocket and artillery exchanges across Israel’s frontier with Lebanon.
Hezbollah leaders met senior leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to discuss how to achieve “victory”, Hezbollah said in a statement on Wednesday. It did not specify when or where the meeting occurred.
