A PUBLIC health catastrophe is imminent in Gaza, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned today as supplies of water, food and fuel reach critical lows.

Hospitals are also running out of medicine and power.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier called for fuel to be allowed into Gaza to allow a water desalination plant to operate.

He said: “It’s an imminent public health catastrophe that looms with the mass displacement, the overcrowding, the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure.”

It came after the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said that an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza has become “a matter of life and death for millions of people.”

UN relief agency commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of exacting “collective punishment” on Palestinians and forcibly displacing civilians.

He warned that a further breakdown of civil order, after the agency’s warehouses were broken into by Palestinians searching for food and other aid, “will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the largest UN agency in Gaza to continue operating.”

Latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health show that at least 8,525 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7 as of today – up by more than 200 from a day earlier.

Among the deaths are 3,542 children and 2,187 women as well as 130 healthcare workers.

Mr Lazzarini said on Monday that the figure “surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.

“This cannot be ‘collateral damage’.”

He said “the handful of convoys” allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt in recent days “is nothing compared to the needs of over two million people trapped in Gaza.”

“The system in place to allow aid into Gaza is geared to fail,” he said, “unless there is political will to make the flow of supplies meaningful, matching the unprecedented humanitarian needs.”

Mr Lazzarini said there is no safe place anywhere in Gaza, and the streets “have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.”

About 63 UN agency workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7.

Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour urged the security council to demand “an end to this bloodshed, which constitutes an affront to humanity, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and a clear and imminent danger for regional and international peace and security.”

“Save those who still can be saved and bury in a dignified manner those who have perished,” Mr Mansour said.

Special envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen told the meeting that violence was spilling into the war-torn country.

He pointed to air strikes attributed to Israel hitting Syria’s airports in Aleppo and Damascus several times, and retaliation by the United States against what it said were multiple attacks on its forces “by groups that it claims are backed by Iran, including on Syrian territory.”

Mr Pedersen said the number of Syrians killed, injured and displaced is at its highest since 2020.