On the 19th day of Israeli air and artillery strikes and a near-total land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said its operations are at breaking point.
"If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip," said the agency which provides aid to 600,000 displaced in Gaza, where many families have slept in the open.
Israel has refused to allow fuel shipments into Gaza, fearing Hamas will use it for weapons and explosives and accusing the militant group of stockpiling supplies in large tanks.
Aid groups have warned that more people will die if medical equipment, water desalination plants and ambulances stop running in Gaza, where the only power plant went offline weeks ago.
Patients are already being treated on the floors of hospitals overwhelmed with thousands wounded by bombing.
The Red Cross has warned that hospitals, once the generators stop running, "turn into morgues."
"We performed a number of surgeries on the wounded without anesthetic," said Ahmad Abdul Hadi, an orthopedic surgeon working in the emergency room of Nasser hospital, Khan Yunis.
"It's tough and painful, but with the lack of resources, what can we do?" Yunis added.
Paramedics transport an injured woman to Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli bombardment, Oct. 21, 2023
Aid agencies report that shelters and emergency tent cities are heaving under the weight of an estimated 1.4 million displaced — more than half the population of the 40-kilometre-long coastal strip.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Israel has cut off water supplies, food and other supplies in Gaza.
Fewer than 70 relief trucks have entered since the war started — "a drop of aid in an ocean of need," Guterres added.
Sentiments passed by Guterres were echoed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"Food, water, medicine and other essential humanitarian assistance must be able to flow into Gaza," Blinken said, adding, "humanitarian pauses must be considered for these purposes."
While the UN warned of halting its operations in Gaza, air strikes continued to hit the besieged Palestinian territory, where Israel insists that it is targeting Hamas sites, including tunnels and munitions depots.
People walk past a bus that is half-buried in rubble as they search for survivors and the bodies of victims through buildings that were destroyed during Israeli bombardment, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 25, 2023.
Despite the sentiments by Israeli authorities, the strikes by the Middle Eastern nation have left many residential buildings reduced to rubble.
Amine Abu Jazar, a displaced resident from Rafah, recounted how "at midnight, while we were sleeping, we suddenly felt shrapnel and rocks falling on us."
"We already have injured and martyrs among us, this is a tragedy," Jazar said.
"There's not even any electricity to see each other, the dead or the injured," added the Rafah resident.