UN stops delivery of food and supplies to Gaza as communications blackout hinders aid coordination

The United Nations was forced Friday to stop deliveries of food and other necessities to Gaza and warned of the growing risk of widespread starvation after internet and telephone services collapsed in the besieged enclave because of lack of fuel.

Israel announced that it will allow two tanker trucks of fuel into Gaza each day for the UN and communication systems. That amount is half of what the UN said it needs for lifesaving functions for hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, including powering water systems, hospitals, bakeries and the trucks delivering aid.

Israel has barred entry of fuel since the start of the war, saying it would be diverted by Hamas for military means. It has also blocked food, water and other supplies except for a trickle of aid from Egypt that aid workers say falls far short of what's needed.

The communications blackout largely cut off Gaza's 2.3 million people from one another and the outside world.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, couldn't bring in its aid convoy Friday because of the communications cutoff, spokesperson Juliette Touma said.

"An extended blackout means an extended suspension of our humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip," Touma told The Associated Press.

Phone and internet services in parts of the Gaza Strip were partially restored Friday night after a limited quantity of fuel for generators was provided, according to NetBlocks, a group that tracks internet outages.

Israeli forces have signaled they could expand their offensive toward Gaza's south while continuing operations in the north. Troops have been searching the territory's biggest hospital, Shifa, for traces of a Hamas command center Israel alleges was located under the building — a claim Hamas and the hospital staff deny.

On Friday, the military said it found the body of another hostage, Cpl. Noa Marciano, in a building adjacent to Shifa, like that of another hostage found Thursday, Yehudit Weiss. Hundreds of mourners, many carrying Israeli flags, attended Marciano's funeral Friday in her hometown of Modi'in.

The war, now in its sixth week, was triggered by Hamas' 7 Oct attack in southern Israel, in which the fighters killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted some 240 men, women and children.

More than 11,400 Palestinians have been killed in the war, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, believed buried under rubble. The count does not differentiate between civilians and fighters, and Israel says it has killed thousands of fighters.

AID DRIES UP

After an American request, Israel agreed to let a "very minimal" amount of fuel into Gaza each day, national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said. COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian affairs, said it would amount to 60,000 liters (15,850 gallons) a day for the UN.

For the communications network, Israel also agreed on another 10,000 liters a day (2,640 gallons), a US State Department official said.

UNRWA and other humanitarian groups need at least 120,000 liters (31,700 gallons) a day to run lifesaving functions, Touma said.

Gaza has received only 10% of its required food supplies each day in shipments from Egypt, according to the UN, and the water system shutdown has left most of the population drinking contaminated water, causing an outbreak of disease.

Dehydration and malnutrition are growing, with nearly all residents in need of food, said Abeer Etefa, a Mideast regional spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Program.

"People are facing the immediate possibility of starvation," she said Thursday from Cairo.

MARCH FOR HOSTAGES

Israeli officials previously vowed fuel would not be let in until Gaza fighters release the hostages. The government has been under heavy public pressure to show it is doing all it can to bring back people abducted in Hamas' attack.

Thousands of marchers — including families of over 50 hostages — embarked Friday on the fourth leg of a five-day walk from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, chanting, "Bring them home!" They are marching to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, calling on his war Cabinet to do more to rescue their loved ones. They have urged the cabinet to consider a cease-fire or prisoner swap in return for the hostages.

Hamas has offered to exchange all hostages for some 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, which the Cabinet has rejected.

CONDITIONS AT SHIFA

With Israeli troops fanned out around the Shifa hospital complex, doctors spoke of horrifying conditions inside. Electricity has been out for nearly a week, leaving incubators for infants and ventilators for ICU patients defunct. Nearly 7,000 people are trapped there with little food, including patients, staff and civilian families.

Hospital Director Mohammed Abu Selmia told Al Jazeera television that 52 patients have died since fuel ran out — up from 40 reported before Israeli troops stormed in on Wednesday. He said staff were amputating limbs of some patients to avoid infection spreading because of shortages in medicines.

More were on the verge of death as their wounds are "open with maggots coming out of them," another doctor, Faisal Siyam, told Al Jazeera.

Dr. Ahmad Mukhalalti said most of the 36 premature infants suffer from severe diarrhea because there is no clean water. He said Israeli troops had taken away all the bodies from the morgue and from a mass grave that staff dug days earlier in the courtyard. The Israeli military had no comment on the report. The doctors' accounts could not be independently verified.

Abu Selmia said Israeli troops should either bring them fuel to power equipment or allow an evacuation.

"The hospital has become a giant prison," he said. "We are surrounded by death."

Israel's military said it delivered 4,000 liters of water and 1,500 ready-made meals to Shifa, but staff said it was too little for the numbers of people there.

Israeli military spokesman Col. Richard Hecht acknowledged that the troops' search for traces of Hamas was going slowly. "It's going to take time," he said.

Israel faces pressure to prove its claim that Hamas set up its main command center in and under the hospital. So far, Israel has shown photos and video of weapons caches that it says were found inside as well as what it said was a tunnel entrance. The AP could not independently verify the Israeli claims.

The allegations are part of Israel's broader accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields across the Gaza Strip, contending that is the reason for the large numbers of civilian casualties during weeks of bombardment.

STRIKES IN THE SOUTH

Airstrikes continued to hammer the southern sector of Gaza, where most of the territory's population is now sheltering. Among them are hundreds of thousands of people who heeded Israel's calls to evacuate Gaza City and the north to get out of the way of its ground offensive.

In the Nusseirat refugee camp, a strike crushed a building to rubble killing at least 41 people, staff at the nearby hospital said. Residents said dozens more were buried in the wreckage.

Early morning strikes outside the city of Khan Younis killed 11 members of a family that evacuated from Gaza City. Dozens of wounded, including babies and young children, streamed into the nearby hospital.

At the morgue, Alaa Abu Hasira wept over the bodies from the strike that were lined up side by side on the floor, including her son, daughter and several sisters. "All my loved ones are gone," she sobbed.

So far, Israel's ground assault has focused on northern Gaza as it vows to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities. If the assault moves into the south, it is not clear where Palestinians can go. Egypt has refused to allow a mass transfer onto its soil.

As the war continues to inflame tensions elsewhere, Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian gunmen in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, killing at least three Palestinians. The fighting broke out late Thursday during an Israeli raid.

Israel's military said five fighters were killed. The Palestinian Health Ministry said three people died. The fighter Islamic Jihad group claimed the three dead as members and identified one as a local commander.