24 hours left for aid to enter Gaza before 'catastrophe': WHO

The Gaza Strip has only "24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left", the regional head of the United Nations' World Health Organization told AFP on Monday, as pressure mounts for assistance to arrive.

If aid is not allowed into the besieged territory, doctors will have to "prepare death certificates for their patients," WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed al-Mandhari, said in an interview with AFP.

Monday marked 10 days of relentless Israeli air strikes on targets in the Palestinian enclave, in retaliation for an October 7 attack by Gaza-based Hamas militants who killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel. Gaza is now barrelling towards "a real catastrophe", Mandhari said.


The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza said around 2,750 people have been killed and 9,700 wounded while, according to the UN, one million have been displaced.

Power outages threaten to cripple life-support systems, from sea water desalination plants to food refrigeration and hospital incubators.