The Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza has become the focus of the international effort to provide humanitarian aid to desperate people who have been bombarded and displaced in the besieged enclave.

Missile strikes continue across the Gaza Strip as the conflict between Israel and Hamas shows no signs of abating. 

Whole neighbourhoods in Gaza have been left inhabitable following missile and artillery strikes.

The UN humanitarian office, OCHA, quoting the Ministry of Health in Gaza. said that the death toll in the enclave was around 3,500 including at least 850 children. 

Hundreds of thousands of people fled south from the north of Gaza.  OCHA estimates there are about one million displaced people including over 353,000 people sheltering in UNRWA schools.

UN humanitarian agencies like the World Food Programme have been distributing bread and other relief aid to the displaced people, but food is running out.

Stocks are running out and the UN agency for Palestine refugees UNRWA is now also hosting displaced people in its logistics hub in Rafah in the south.

Essential services like water, health and sanitation are barely functioning and electricity is in short supply.

The complete siege of Gaza continues and nobody is being allowed to leave through the Rafah crossing into Egypt’s Sinai.

On Friday, the UN Secretary-General told the media that getting aid flowing through the Rafah crossing to Gaza was “the difference between life and death.”