A two-day blackout caused by fuel shortages ended after a first delivery arrived from Egypt late Friday, but UN officials continued to plead for a ceasefire, warning no part of Gaza is safe.

On Saturday, the director of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said it had received the bodies of 26 people, as well as 23 people with serious injuries, after an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the southern region's Hamad city.

Meanwhile, Israel has been pressing operations in Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa in the north of the territory, and ordered the evacuation of the medical complex.

The Israeli army's air and ground campaign has since killed 12,000 people, including 5,000 children, and 3,300 women, with 30,000 more people wounded, since Hamas Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, which killed about 1,200 people, and captured 240 captives. 

Israel has imposed a siege on the territory, allowing just a trickle of aid in from Egypt but barring shipments of fuel.

However, on Friday, Israel's war cabinet unanimously agreed to allow two fuel tankers a day "to run the wastewater treatment facilities... which are facing collapse due to the lack of electricity", national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said.

"We took that decision to prevent the spread of epidemics," he said.

A senior US official said Washington had exerted huge pressure on Israel for weeks to allow fuel in.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said 70 percent of residents have no access to clean water in south Gaza, where raw sewage has begun to flow on the streets.

Under the deal, 140,000 liters (37,000 gallons) of fuel will be allowed every 48 hours, of which 20,000 liters will be earmarked for generators to restore the phone network, the US official said.

Communications have been down for two days after fuel ran out, and a first consignment of some 17,000 litres was earmarked for telecommunications company Paltel.

The communications blackout hampered aid deliveries, UNRWA said, with humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths telling the UN General Assembly that fuel supplies to the agency so far were "a fraction of what is needed to meet the minimum of our humanitarian responsibilities".

The health ministry in Gaza said 24 patients had died in 48 hours due to the lack of fuel for generators.

Israel has come under scrutiny for attacks targeting hospitals in the northern part of Gaza, but says the facilities are being used by Hamas -- a claim rejected by the group and medical staff, and not prooved by Israel despite its invasion and siege of the medical facilities. 

Several thousand people, including wounded patients and premature babies, are believed to be sheltering at the Al-Shifa hospital, where Israeli troops began a raid on Wednesday .

Israel has not recovered hostages at the hospital but said it found the bodies of two captives women "not far away", according to the Israeli army. Ahram Online could not verify this claim from an independent source.

'Civilians face starvation' 
 

In Gaza, more than 1.5 million people have been internally displaced, and Israel's blockade has left civilians facing the "immediate possibility of starvation", according to World Food Programme head Cindy McCain.

More than half of Gaza's hospitals are no longer functional due to combat, damage, or shortages, and people are waiting four to six hours for half the normal portion of bread.

Israel has told Palestinians to move south for their safety, but deadly air strikes continue to hit central and southern Gaza.

"They said the south was safer, so we moved," Azhar al-Rifi told AFP.

But her family was caught in another strike that killed seven relatives, including her five-year-old nephew.

"Two weeks ago, his mother died, so my husband decided that he would live with us," she said, saying the boy told her: "I can no longer call anyone mom."

"I replied: 'I'm your mother'," she said.

"At four in the morning, he was taken away from us."

West Bank violence 
 

Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has surged since the war, with Washington urging action to rein in terrorist settler attacks on Palestinians.

Raids by Israel's military have also multiplied and the Palestinian death toll has soared to over 180.

The Israeli occupation army said Friday it had killed at least seven Palestinians in two separate attacks in the West Bank.

And overnight, the Red Crescent said five people were killed in a strike on the headquarters of Palestinian group Fatah (the movement of President Mahmoud Abbas) in the West Bank's Balata refugee camp.