UN aid agencies today offered an ever more desperate picture of life inside Gaza, with the World Health Organization reporting 7,028 deaths, more than 40% of whom are children, writes BBC.

The WHO cited data from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza and said it had received significant detail about those killed.

There have been 18,482 injuries, the WHO said, again a significant proportion of them are children. The agency said 23 of 35 hospitals were still partially functioning - others, as well as community clinics, have had to close.

The WHO says 1,000 people in Gaza need dialysis, 30 premature babies are in incubators and 2,000 cancer patients need urgent treatment. All of this becomes impossible without fuel to run hospital generators.

A WHO official spoke of desperate conditions inside the hospitals which are still functioning, with seriously injured patients being operated on in corridors with no anaesthetic, and “the smell of death” and “bodies of children” everywhere.