In recent days, Gaza has continued to feel the effects of Israel’s blockade, and is already 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 litre 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 Mr 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,” Mr 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.”