The densely-populated Gaza enclave has been subjected to an unprecedented bombardment for more than five weeks as part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to “eliminate Hamas” in response to the group’s cross-border attack on October 7.

But amid signs of an increasing erosion of international support for Israel’s military response, which aid organizations say is worsening an already alarming humanitarian crisis in the besieged strip of land, a large majority of Palestinians have indicated that they will be unable to “forgive” Israel for its actions.

According to a poll of Palestinians conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD), some 90% of respondents believe that “coexistence [with Israel] is increasingly impossible” given the scale of its military action in Gaza.

The poll, conducted between October 31 and November 7, also found that 98% reported they will “never forget and never forgive” Israel.

At least 12,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7, Palestinian health officials have confirmed, adding that 5,000 of these are children and that 200 medical personnel have also died as a result of Israeli artillery, airstrikes or ground offensives. Around 1.6 million people, or about 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, have also been displaced, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles announced on Friday.

Elsewhere in the AWRAD poll, 100% of respondents said that there is no “safe space” in Gaza, while 65% view Israel’s offensive as a “war against all Palestinians” and not solely against Hamas.

It also found that almost half of people, 48%, said that their homes had been destroyed or partially damaged and that 90% supported a ceasefire. A total of 91% of respondents said that they had no trust in information provided to them by the Israeli military.

The poll was conducted via face-to-face interviews with 688 Palestinians. AWRAD said its sample included people of varying socioeconomic backgrounds and had an equal representation of men and women.

“Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water,” Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said in a Friday statement.

“These frequently invisible casualties of war are preventable, and Israel must prevent them,” he continued, adding, “Israel must stop using water as a weapon of war.”

Arrojo-Agudo stated he wanted to “remind Israel that consciously preventing supplies needed for safe water from entering the Gaza Strip violates both international humanitarian and human rights law”.

For days, humanitarian organizations including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have emphasized the necessity of fuel to operate desalination stations and water pumps in Gaza.

According to UNRWA, roughly 70% of people in Gaza are now drinking “salinized and contaminated” water. Raw sewage has also started flowing through the streets in some areas as UN waste disposal systems are also impacted by the fuel shortages.

Dehydration and waterborne diseases are now surging in Gaza due to “salinated and polluted water consumption from unsafe sources”, Arrojo-Agudo warned Friday.

“Coupled with the massive displacement of thousands of people in recent days, this is the perfect scenario for an epidemic that will only punish innocents, once again.”

Of the 72 primary health care clinics, 52 have also been forced to close, it added.

More than 40 patients, including four premature babies, have died at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza’s largest hospital, in the last six days, according to the health ministry.

Most of the intensive care unit patients, who were on ventilators due to the lack of fuel and oxygen at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, have died, the doctor who leads the burns department at the hospital told Al-Jazeera over the phone from inside the facility on Friday.

Dr. Ahmad Mofeed Al-Mokhalalati noted a significant decrease in the number of premature babies in their care, with little hope for the survival of the remaining infants under the current conditions.

The hospital, which is Gaza’s largest, is grappling with a severe shortage of basic necessities — no water and no electricity in the main buildings of the compound, the doctor continued.

As a result, surgical operations have come to a halt due to the lack of electricity. This has led to an increase in suffering, especially among children who are now facing severe intestinal infections, a direct consequence of the unavailability of clean water, Al-Mokhalalati added.

And although he noted that Israeli forces promised to provide food, the supply delivered was grossly insufficient, catering to for only 40% of those inside the hospital, he stated.

The situation escalated when the Israeli forces stormed two buildings within the medical compound, with tanks still present in the area, the doctor noted. Snipers have been deployed around the hospital, adding a layer of fear and uncertainty according to Al-Mokhalalati.

Ashraf al-Qudra, the Ministry of Health spokesperson in al-Shifa Hospital, also said that the situation is “catastrophic”, as Israeli soldiers continue to raid the building.

“There is not a drop of water, the situation is catastrophic, doctors are unable to change dressings on wounds or perform surgery,” he said on Friday, in a televised interview with Al Jazeera.

“Children have a number of issues from diarrhoea to high temperatures, we aren’t able to treat them due to the lack of water and fuel in the hospital.”

He added that ambulances have not been able to come to the hospital to collect dead bodies due to the ongoing bombing.

“Israel forces are still carrying out searches across all rooms, even in the maternity ward,” he stated.

A large crowd walked along a highway toward Jerusalem, according to the Reuters news agency, with some people holding signs of pictures of missing people captioned “Bring them home now”.

One of the participants in the march, Shelly Shem Tov, told CNN that Hamas abducted her son. She said the march had started three days ago in Tel Aviv and that the group was on the way to Jerusalem to demand that the government “bring our families back home safely, alive”.

“This is the situation. We are 42 days from October 7. We don’t know what about our families. I don’t know (anything) about my son, if he is OK,” she continued, stating, “I know that he was kidnapped by Hamas, and from that day I don’t know anything about him.”

“It’s a nightmare. Forty-two days of nightmare,” she added.

Shem Tov said that she has heard “nothing” from the Israeli government since it told her that Hamas had kidnapped her son.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Friday that the military’s official estimate of hostages being held in Gaza is 237. The IDF has previously announced that the number can fluctuate based on updated intelligence.

ABC TV reported on Friday, citing a senior Israeli official, that a deal to release the hostages could be announced in the next two or three days. According to sources of the Reuters news agency, Hamas agreed on the general terms of a deal with Israel, under which it would release about 50 hostages in exchange for a three-day ceasefire in Gaza. However, ABC quoted an Israeli official as saying that the main stumbling block is how many hostages Hamas is ready to release. Israel insists on the release of all the children, their mothers and their families, a total of about 80 hostages while Hamas says it will release only women and small children, or about 50 people.

Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi stated on Friday no agreement on the release of at least some of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip has been reached so far.

“So far, there is no agreement on prisoner exchange. No decision on this matter has been made at this point. But these matters are being discussed and that is why we believe that if such an agreement is reached, very many families will be able to reunite with their relatives,” he told a news conference.

“Casualties continue to mount, with the dead reportedly exceeding 11,000 people – the majority of them children and women. The actual total, however, is likely much higher as figures have not been updated for five days due to a collapse of communication networks in Gaza,” stated Martin Griffiths, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, at a General Assembly meeting on Gaza’s humanitarian situation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that Tel Aviv’s attempts to minimize casualties in Gaza were “not successful”.

The health ministry in Gaza has reported that 11,500 people had been killed, including 4,700 children. Its figures only include people recorded dead at hospitals and is almost certainly an undercount, not including the deceased who did not pass through a hospital or whose bodies have not been recovered from bombed sites.

The UN Security Council on Wednesday adopted its first resolution since the outbreak of the war, calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in Gaza.

The US and UK abstained from the vote because the resolution did not condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Russia also abstained because the resolution did not demand a humanitarian ceasefire.