The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, says only one hospital in the north is capable of receiving patients. All the others are no longer able to function and mostly serve as shelters from the fighting, including Gaza’s largest, Shifa, which is surrounded by Israeli troops and where 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.

Israel has forced civilians to evacuate Gaza City and surrounding areas in the north, but the southern part of the besieged territory is not much safer. Israel carries out frequent airstrikes from north to south, killing women and children.

U.N.-run shelters in the south are severely overcrowded, with an average of one toilet for 160 people. In all, some 1.5 million Palestinians, more than two thirds of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes.

People stand in line for hours for scarce bread and brackish water. Trash is piling up, sewage is flooding the streets and taps run dry because there is no fuel for water pumps or treatment plants. Israel has barred fuel imports since the start of the war.

The onset of rainy, cold weather added to the misery. At a tent camp outside a hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, people trudged through mud as they stretched plastic tarps over flimsy tents.

“All of these tents collapsed because of the rain," said Iqbal Abu Saud, who had fled Gaza City with 30 of her relatives. “How many days will we have to deal with this?”

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which is struggling to provide basic services to over 600,000 people sheltering in schools and other facilities in the south, said it may run out of fuel by Wednesday, forcing it to halt most aid operations. It said it was unable to continue importing limited supplies of food and medicine through Egypt's Rafah crossing, Gaza's only link to the outside world.

Images of doctors trying to keep newborns warm at Shifa have circulated widely.

On Monday, the military released presumed footage of a children's hospital that its forces entered over the weekend, showing what it claims are weapons found inside. The video showed what appeared to be a hastily installed toilet and ventilation system, as well as a motorcycle with a bullet hole in it, in the basement.

The Israeli allegations has not been confirmed by independant sources.

The Health Ministry in Gaza rejected the allegations, saying the basement shown was part of the hospital and had been turned into a shelter for displaced people.

“The hospital was forcefully evacuated at gunpoint ... Why didn’t they detain any of the alleged resistance or alleged hostages?” the statement said. It denied the facility was even related to a tunnel that Israeli forces showed.

For weeks, Shifa staff members running low on supplies have performed surgery on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia and using vinegar as antiseptic. After the weekend's mass exodus, about 650 patients and 500 staff remain in the hospital, which can no longer function, along with around 2,500 displaced Palestinians sheltering inside with little food or water.

The Health Ministry said 32 patients, including three babies, have died since its emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. It said the 36 babies, as well as other patients, are at risk of dying.

Early Tuesday, the Israeli occupation army said in a statement that it had started an effort to transfer incubators from Israel to Shifa. It wasn't clear if the incubators had been delivered or how they will be powered.

International law gives hospitals special protections during war. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross tried Monday to evacuate some 6,000 people from another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, but said its convoy had to turn back because of Israeli shelling. 

The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses to allow wider distribution of badly needed aid. Israel has agreed only to daily windows during which civilians can flee northern Gaza on foot along two main roads.

As of last Friday, more than 11,100 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry. About 2,700 people have been reported missing.

Health officials have not updated the toll, citing the difficulty of collecting information as communication are cutwith hospitals.

The war has also fueled tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. At least eight Palestinian were killed overnight during an Israeli raid in Tulkarem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday.

More than 190 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, mainly during Israeli incrusions and arrest raids and by terrorist Israeli settlers.