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Palestinians mourn their dead - the health system can hardly care for the injured

Photo: Said Khatib / AFP

As Israel and Hamas continue to negotiate a ceasefire, the death toll in the Gaza Strip is rising.

According to the UN, more than 30,000 people have died since the Israeli military offensive began.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, gave the number at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Thursday.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had previously mentioned the number on the X platform.

Neither Türk nor Tedros named the source of their information.

There was initially no official confirmation from the Hamas-run health authorities in the Gaza Strip, which publish the figures daily.

However, in the past few days this has reported deaths of more than 29,000 people.

It is therefore likely that the border will be exceeded.

Chaotic scenes during relief distribution

Meanwhile, the humanitarian emergency in the Gaza Strip continues to worsen, with the result that the UN has not ruled out supplying more than two million people by air.

There are chaotic scenes and scuffles during the distribution of relief supplies.

According to helpers from the organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the healthcare system in the densely populated coastal area is completely collapsing.

Given the dramatic situation in the Gaza Strip, medical staff there are barely able to provide people with adequate care, according to Doctors Without Borders.

Meanwhile, the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalia, north of the coastal strip, suspended medical work due to a lack of fuel.

Thousands of patients could no longer be cared for, said the hospital's director, Ahmed Kahalot.

The UN is therefore apparently considering supply flights.

»Ideally, we want to move things by road, we want more roads to be open, we want more open border crossings.

But as I said: All options remain on the table for the World Food Program (WFP), said UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Wednesday in New York.

Airdropping aid, which other countries such as Jordan and France are already doing over the Gaza Strip, is considered a last resort by the United Nations because it involves technical difficulties and enormous costs.

But recently the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has also worsened because many trucks carrying relief supplies are not being allowed through to their destination.

According to a CNN report, there were also chaotic scenes during the distribution of aid dropped from the air.

Footage from the US broadcaster showed desperate men trying to secure aid supplies.

According to the report, some people even swam and paddled out to sea after an auxiliary plane apparently missed its target.

Hundreds of Palestinians crowded the beaches of the central Gaza Strip and in the southern coastal area to receive part of the delivery.

The CNN footage shows how some of them use long wooden sticks to try to keep other people away from the goods they have fished out of the sea.

muk/dpa