The World Health Organization has delivered 24 truckloads of medical supplies to Gaza since Friday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday.

The shipments include essential medicines, trauma and surgical kits, treatments for non-communicable diseases, and laboratory and water testing equipment. Tedros said the items would be distributed to health facilities and partner organizations in the enclave over the coming days.

He thanked the United Arab Emirates for supporting the latest delivery and called for a sustained and expanded flow of humanitarian health aid into Gaza. “Lives across Gaza depend on it,” he wrote on X.

Despite repeated calls for a ceasefire and Israel claiming to provide a “humanitarian pathway,” the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) carried out multiple shootings and airstrikes on Sunday after having targeted various locations across the Gaza Strip, murdering at least 18 Palestinians, including 13 who were waiting for humanitarian aid, and injuring several others.

A Gaza aid headquarters was among the areas targeted and attacked, reportedly killing one aid worker and injuring three others.

Six people have died in the last 24 hours due to famine and malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, medical sources reported on Sunday.

The health system in Gaza has largely collapsed under Israel’s military campaign, which has killed more than 60,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since October 2023. The ongoing blockade has also led to widespread hunger and starvation.

Germany stressed that Israel remains responsible for enabling comprehensive humanitarian access with the support of the UN and aid agencies. Government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said on Saturday that Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul briefed the Federal Security Cabinet following his visit to Israel and the West Bank.

While Kornelius noted “some initial, limited progress” in aid deliveries, he described the efforts as “clearly insufficient to alleviate the acute emergency.”

As thousands of aid trucks gather around the enclave, the Palestinian government has made a desperate plea to the international community and its UN and humanitarian institutions to put more pressure on the Israeli occupation to open the crossings in the Gaza Strip and permit the entry of aid trucks.

Food insecurity has reached 100%, the administration said in a statement on Saturday, citing information from specialized UN agencies. It demanded that the genocidal war being waged against the people of the Strip stop using hunger as a weapon.

Meanwhile, in a bid to address the dire situation in the strip, hundreds of seriously ill children from Gaza will be evacuated to the UK for treatment by the NHS, as part of a new plan due to be announced within weeks, according to a report.