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More than 12,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel's indiscriminate strikes on the Gaza Strip, local authorities said today, with over 5,000 of them children.
The Gaza health ministry previously said that it was unable to give precise figures due to the intensity of the Israeli bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave. Hundreds of unrecovered bodies are believed to be trapped under the rubble of destroyed residential buildings.
Communications systems in the Gaza Strip were partly restored late on Friday after going down for a second day, following the entry of a limited amount of fuel to power the internet and phone networks.
Aid agencies had previously halted cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies even as they warned people may soon face starvation.
Israel has been pushing deeper into Gaza City, and its troops have been searching Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, for traces of a Hamas command centre that Israeli forces allege was located under the building.
They have displayed images of what they said was a "tunnel entrance" and weapons reportedly found in a truck inside the compound but no evidence of the command centre, which Hamas and Al-Shifa staff deny existed.
Israel has also barred fuel shipments into Gaza since the beginning of the war but permitted very limited shipment to UNRWA earlier this week for trucks delivering a limited quantity of food after the agency's fuel reservoir ran dry.
Gaza is now receiving only 10 percent of its needed food supplies daily, and dehydration and malnutrition are growing with nearly all of the 2.3 million people in the territory needing food according to the United Nations' World Food Program.
Fuel is needed for generators that run emergency communication systems, hospitals, desalination plants and other critical infrastructure in Gaza.