Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory

Amid relentless violence, families flee their shattered homes in Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, seeking refuge in the southern Gaza Strip. UNICEF

Occupied Palestinian Territory

OCHA reported that yesterday, 10 trucks carrying water, food and medicines entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing, bringing the total number of trucks entering since 21 October to 227. The entry of fuel, which is desperately needed to operate life-saving equipment, remains banned by the Israeli authorities.

The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital in Gaza City reportedly ran out of fuel yesterday and was forced to stop most of its activities, putting the lives of 70 cancer patients at serious risk.

Gaza’s telecommunication and Internet services were cut for about eight hours yesterday, leaving civilians in grave danger amid heavy Israeli bombardments from air and land.

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that some 690,000 internally displaced people are sheltering in 149 installations across the Gaza Strip. An estimated 160,000 people are housed in 57 shelters in the north and in Gaza City. However, UNRWA is no longer able to provide services to people displaced in those areas.

The Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, called on the warring parties to agree to pauses in the fighting, adding that “this is the only viable option to get relief items into Gaza right now. Repeated humanitarian pauses would allow us to provide more aid to those in need across Gaza, thus alleviating people’s suffering and reducing the risk of civil disorder.”