The UN on Tuesday warned that already low levels of aid trickling into Gaza had dwindled further, with the situation in the besieged north especially "catastrophic".
The warning from UNRWA, the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, came as Israel said it was opening an additional aid crossing into Gaza on the eve of a US-imposed deadline to improve humanitarian conditions in the war-ravaged territory.
Asked about whether there were signs the situation had improved ahead of Wednesday's deadline, Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA emergencies officer, highlighted that "aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months".
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin last month cautioned Israel that it had until November 13 to let more aid into Gaza or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel's primary supporter.
The letter was sent weeks before the November 5 US presidential election won by Donald Trump, who has promised to give Israel freer rein.
Speaking to a Geneva media briefing via video-link from Gaza, Wateridge said that "the average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip... That is for 2.2 million people".
"Children are dying. People are dying every day," she said, stressing that "people here need everything".
The situation is at its worst in northern Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment at the weekend said that famine was imminent.
No food was permitted to enter besieged northern Gaza for an entire month, Wateridge said, adding that UN requests to access the area have been repeatedly denied.
Wateridge said that testimonies from the north painted "an endlessly horrific" picture that was becoming "more critical" by the hour.
"Hospitals have been bombed, the doctors inform us that they have run out of blood supplies, they have run out of medicine... there are bodies in the streets."
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 43,603 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip queue at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, on Monday. REUTERS
A truck carries humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, on Monday. REUTERS
A handout picture released by the official Jordanian news agency Petra shows an airdrop of humanitarian and relief aid to the southern Gaza Strip carried out by members of the Jordanian army, on Tuesday. AFP
Displaced Palestinians make their way after fleeing the northern part of Gaza amid an Israeli military operation, on Tuesday. REUTERS
Displaced Palestinians make their way after fleeing the northern part of Gaza amid an Israeli military operation, in Gaza City, on Tuesday. REUTERS
A girl cries as she's carried by a Palestinian woman mourning relatives killed in overnight Israeli strikes on the al-Mawasi cafeteria in southern Gaza's Khan Yunis, outside Nasser hospital, on Tuesday. AFP
Palestinians displaced from shelters in Beit Hanoun cross the main Salaheddine road into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on bicycles and donkey carts following Israeli army evacuation orders, on Tuesday. AFP
Children sit in the back of a donkey cart as Palestinians displaced from shelters in Beit Hanoun cross the main Salaheddine road into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip following Israeli army evacuation orders, on Tuesday. AFP
A general view shows destroyed buildings in Northern Gaza near the Israel-Gaza border, on Monday. REUTERS