WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Ahmed Al-Mandhari said the bombarded, besieged territory must be allowed to receive convoys of aid, currently stuck at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
If assistance does not arrive, doctors will have to “prepare death certificates for their patients”, he said.
With a ground invasion of Gaza expected, Israel was preparing for the potential of a new front opening on its northern border with Lebanon, where it has exchanged fire repeatedly with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. The military ordered residents from 28 Israeli communities to evacuate.
‘Matter of life or death’: lack of water worsens misery in besieged Gaza
‘Matter of life or death’: lack of water worsens misery in besieged Gaza
Speaking to the Israeli Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran and Hezbollah, “Don’t test us in the north. Don’t make the mistake of the past. Today, the price you will pay will be far heavier,” referring to Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah.
He said the world needed to unite to defeat Hamas, adding that “this war is also your war,” and compared Hamas to the Nazis.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering in UN facilities are on less than 1 litre (1 quart) of water per day. Hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse, with emergency generators that power machines like ventilators and incubators down to about one day of fuel and supplies of medicine almost exhausted.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted over six weeks. That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.
More than 1,400 Israelis have died, the vast majority civilians killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault. The Israeli military said Monday that at least 199 hostages were taken back in Gaza, higher than previous estimates. The military did not specify whether that number includes foreigners.
Israeli air strikes have pulverised entire neighbourhoods as Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets into Israel. Israel is widely expected to launch a ground offensive to kill Hamas leaders, recover captives and destroy the group’s military infrastructure, much of which is in residential areas.
Street-by-street fighting would likely cause mounting casualties on both sides.
Israel has ordered more than 1 million Palestinians – almost half the territory’s population – to leave Gaza City and the surrounding area for the enclave’s south. The military says it is trying to clear away civilians ahead of a major campaign against Hamas in the north, where it says the militants have extensive networks of tunnels and rocket launchers.
Hamas has urged people to stay in their homes, and the Israeli military on Sunday released photos it said showed a Hamas roadblock preventing traffic from moving south.
WHO says forced evacuation of Gaza patients akin to ‘death sentence’
WHO says forced evacuation of Gaza patients akin to ‘death sentence’
For a third day, Israel’s military announced a safe corridor for people to move from north to south between the hours of 8am and noon. It said more than 600,000 people have already evacuated the Gaza City area.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it has been forced to ration water in schools and other facilities that have been turned into shelters, giving people just 1 litre (1 quart) a day to cover all their needs.
Israel has said the siege won’t be lifted until Hamas releases all the captives, but the country’s water ministry said water had been restored at one “specific point” in Gaza, at a location outside the southern town of Khan Younis. Aid workers in Gaza said they had not yet seen evidence the water was back.
An Israeli military spokesman said the evacuation of communities in the north would allow Israeli forces to operate with greater latitude in the area. The order affects towns within 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) of the border.
“Israel is ready to operate on two fronts, and even more,” the spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said. “If Hezbollah makes the mistake of testing us, the response will be deadly.”
03:55
Soldiers find ‘massacre’ in Israeli village as air strikes continue to pummel Gaza
Soldiers find ‘massacre’ in Israeli village as air strikes continue to pummel Gaza
Hezbollah released video showing snipers shooting out cameras on several Israeli army posts along the border, apparently to prevent Israel from monitoring movements on the Lebanese side.
In the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, the US government began evacuating some 2,500 American citizens by ship to Cyprus. Commercial airlines have largely stopped flying into Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, making it extremely difficult to get out of the country.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to Israel for a second time in less than a week after a six-country tour through Arab nations aimed at preventing the fighting from igniting a broader conflict. President Joe Biden is also considering a trip to Israel, though no plans have been finalised.
Biden postponed a planned trip to Colorado on Monday to talk about his domestic agenda and instead will hold meetings with top aides on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In a television interview Sunday night, Biden, who has repeatedly proclaimed support for Israel, said he thought it would be a “big mistake” for the country to reoccupy Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, told CNN the country does not want to occupy Gaza but will do “whatever is needed” to obliterate Hamas’ capabilities.
Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region and the call-up of some 360,000 reservists, have positioned themselves along Gaza’s border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group. Israel said it has already struck dozens of military targets, including command centres and rocket launchers, and also killed Hamas commanders.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse