UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said that some of the food delivered into Gaza so far, such as rice and lentils, had been impractical given the dwindling availability of fresh water and fuel.

Hamas stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 people according to Israeli officials.

Israel has responded with heavy air and artillery strikes that have killed 5,791 in Gaza, including 2,360 children according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra, and plunged the Palestinian territory into a dire humanitarian crisis.

Al-Qidra said "at least 16,297 others were wounded", adding that the ministry "received 1,550 reports of missing people, including 870 children, suggesting that those missing could still be under the rubble of collapsed buildings".

The World Health Organization said 12 hospitals out of a total of 35 in Gaza were not functioning as of Monday. It said 46 out of 72 health care facilities across Gaza, or 64%, were not operating, mostly in Gaza city and northern Gaza.
 
Israel has also cut off water, food, fuel and energy supplies to Gaza, and only a trickle of aid has been allowed in from Egypt in recent days under a US-brokered deal.

"An additional challenge in a very limited flow of supplies is that we are not really receiving the most needed supplies for Gaza, or the most relevant," UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai said.

"In one of the shipments over the last couple of days, we received boxes of rice and lentils," she told journalists at the UN in Geneva, via video-link from the Jordanian capital Amman, where UNRWA has its headquarters.

"But for people to cook lentils and rice, they need water and gas. And therefore these kinds of supplies -- while very generous and well intended -- are not very usable right now," she said.

Alrifai added that before October 7, around 500 trucks a day were entering Gaza from Israel and Egypt, with a mixture of commercial goods, food, aid and fuel.

But only a few dozen trucks carrying food, medicine and water have entered Gaza via Egypt since a US-brokered deal entered into operation on Saturday.

"We will need to get better as a consortium of humanitarians in sending very explicit lists of what is most needed," Alrifai said.

She noted that items such as mattresses and blankets would be needed as winter approaches.