TEHRAN- In recent days, Gaza has continued to feel the effects of Israel's tighter blockade and is already on the verge of running out of water, electricity and medication. 

Now, a UN official has said it is "even running out of body bags". 

"Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity," said United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini. 

"There is not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a liter of fuel that has been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the last eight days." 

The number of people seeking shelter in UNRWA facilities is also rising, with Lazzarini saying, "We do not have any more capacity to deal with them".

"Every story coming out of Gaza is about survival, despair and loss.? Thousands of people have been killed, including children and women. Gaza is now even running out of body bags." 

He described one situation where hundreds of people are sharing a single toilet. 

"Old people, children, pregnant women, people with disabilities are just being deprived of their basic human dignity, and this is a total disgrace," he said, 

Most of the organisation's 13,000 staff have been displaced, and 14 employees have been killed. 

"An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes," Lazzarini added. 

"Unless we bring now supplies into Gaza, UNRWA and aid workers will not be able to continue humanitarian operations. ? 

"The UNRWA operations is the largest United Nations footprint in the Gaza Strip and we are on the verge of collapse." 
Hamas has refuted Israeli claims that the regime has restarted water supplies to southern Gaza.

Israel's minister of energy and water, Israel Katz, said in a statement that water had been restored at one "specific point" in Gaza, while a spokesman said the location was outside Khan Younis.

But this is not the case, according to officials in the Gaza Strip, including its interior ministry.

"The residents drink unhealthy water, posing a serious health crisis threatens the lives of the citizens," it said.

Water has run out at UN shelters across Gaza and aid workers said they had not yet seen any evidence that Israel has switched the taps back on.

The water shortage is part of a snowballing humanitarian crisis, with UN food, water, medical supplies and fuel all waiting on Gaza's borders.

Taking into account the humanitarian crisis, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the Middle East as being "on the verge of the abyss".

The charity group ActionAid has repeated its call for the international community to come together to demand the reversal of Israeli evacuation orders for hospitals in Gaza. One of its youth volunteers has described conditions at Shifa hospital saying:

"Surprisingly we are still alive. Before becoming a shelter, this was one of the most important and largest hospitals in the Gaza Strip. The conditions here are miserable. We are without water, without food, without hygiene. People are sleeping and lying in the streets, in the corridors and everywhere inside the hospital."

An estimated 35,000 people are sheltering in al Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital.
And while Israeli military forces have ordered the evacuation of 22 hospitals across northern Gaza, charities are warning they are the only safe place for many Palestinians.

ActionAid has said that the forcible evacuation of hospitals is a breach of international law that places the lives of patients and medical professionals at risk. 

William Schomburg, the head of the sub-delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, has said civilians in the territory lack the food, electricity and water needed to meet their most basic needs.

Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, has said “the spectre of death” is hanging over Gaza.
In a social media post, he wrote, "The specter of death is hanging over Gaza. With no water, no power, no food and no medicine, thousands will die. Plain and simple."

The UN health agency has said life-saving assistance for 300,000 Palestinian patients is sitting just on the other side of the Rafah border crossing but the regime is refusing to allow any humanitarian supplies to enter.

Hundreds of metric tons of fuel, water and other aid is stuck at the Rafah border crossing, but Israel waged air strikes on the crossing from Gaza into Egypt to prevent the aid from reaching desperate Palestinians.

On Monday, Israel bombed the Palestinian side of the crossing. 

Reports say the attack is the fourth by the regime since last Saturday, showing there is no willingness on the Israeli side for the crossing to be kept safe. 

Rafah crossing had been expected to open at 9am local time on Monday for aid to enter Gaza in exchange for some foreign nationals and Palestinians with duel citizenship to leave. 

The Israeli military declared that it would not cease fire and it became very clear that without that, nothing would go in or out of Gaza.

Thousands of sick and vulnerable Palestinians had gathered there in recent days amid hopes that they would be allowed to leave.

Egypt said it was Israel that was not allowing aid into Gaza as the Egyptian health minister was touring hospitals on the Egyptian side with the expectation of receiving people leaving the Gaza Strip. 

Earlier, authorities in Cairo said that the Israelis were not even cooperating with the delivery of aid into Gaza and the evacuations of some people, despite the United States and Egypt saying an agreement had been reached on the matter.

"There is an urgent need to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza," Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told reporters.

"Until now the Israeli government has not taken a position on opening the Rafah crossing from the Gaza side to allow the entrance of assistance and exit of citizens of third countries."

More than 2 million Gazans have been under a tighter siege since Israel launched an intense bombardment and blockade on October 7.

Rafah is Gaza's only gateway to the rest of the world that's not directly controlled by Israel. It is under the control of Egypt as part of an agreement with the Israeli regime and the European Union.

The World Health Organization which said medical facilities are already being deemed as "overflowing", has warned they are now on the verge of collapse.

Four in northern Gaza have ceased functioning and 21 others have received Israeli orders to evacuate.

"We are concerned about disease outbreaks due to mass displacement and poor water and sanitation," the World Health Organization said.

"Water is needed to ensure sanitary conditions on inpatient wards, in operation rooms, and emergency departments. 

"It is essential for the prevention of hospital-associated infections and for the prevention of outbreaks in hospitals."

The regime claimed water had been restored at one "specific point" in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, but aid workers in Gaza say they have not seen any evidence to back this up.

A spokesman for the Israeli army has said the regime cannot provide the people of Gaza with aid.

Peter Lerner claimed that Palestinians have enough food to last for several weeks - as well as shelter, in stark contrast to UN assessments and reports.

In remarks, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied territory of the West Bank, Mohammad Shtayyeh, also said, "We are people of a civilization, we are not animals like they are painting us and our people will not surrender."

Speaking from Ramallah, he said, "Our people will not migrate and will not leave their land."

The Palestinian prime minister called for immediate international help, saying people in Gaza are living without food, water, electricity and medication.  

"They are targeting civilians and hospitals, we are calling on the world community to help immediately," he added.

In an attempt to expand its censorship of war crimes before the eyes of the world, Israel has killed almost a dozen journalists working in the Gaza Strip with airstrikes. 

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has said that since October 7, eleven reporters have been killed by the Israeli attacks. 

The news comes after Lebanon's foreign ministry said it would submit a formal complaint to the UN Security Council over what it called "Israel's deliberate killing" of a Reuters video journalist on Friday on Lebanese territory. 

Israel launched a missile that hit a civilian car belonging to a media group, the Lebanese high command said.

In the northern Gaza Strip, people have told Reuters that Israeli warplanes bombed areas around al-Quds hospital on Monday. Houses were damaged, forcing hundreds of people to take shelter in the Red Crescent-run hospital.

Health officials said Israeli warplanes also bombed three offices of the civil emergency and ambulance service in Gaza City, killing five people and paralyzing the rescue services.

With at least one thousand people still trapped in collapsed buildings, rescuers and residents are frantically tearing away rubble with their hands, sometimes pulling out barely breathing children.

One of the areas being hammered by Israeli airstrikes is the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. 

An unknown number of people have been killed in the attacks over the past 48 hours, and an unknown number of bodies remain under the rubble. 

Footage shows the camp has been turned into a scene of devastation, with buildings flattened and nearby houses destroyed. 

Men carrying bloodied victims on their backs and bodies lying among the debris have been photographed. 

These are scenes that you would expect to see after a devastating natural disaster. 

Except this is not a natural disaster. This is man-made.