“Israeli occupation continues to prevent the entry of cooking gas and various types of fuel into the Gaza Strip for the seventh month, especially for Gaza City and the northern governorates, which threatens to exacerbate the humanitarian and health crisis amid the ongoing aggression,” head of the Gaza Media Office Salama Marouf said.

He added: “Palestinians in Gaza rely on primitive alternative means by igniting fires from wood, charcoal, and building rubble leftovers, resulting in hundreds being affected by respiratory diseases due to the use of plastic and chemical materials to ignite fires, emitting toxic gases.”

“Hundreds of new cases have been recorded, afflicted with various respiratory diseases, due to relying on igniting fires using the mentioned methods for long hours daily over the past months,” Marouf also stated.

He warned that this “forebodes the increasing severity of this crisis and the citizens’ susceptibility to lung cancer and respiratory diseases due to the toxic gases emitted from these means.”

He called on the international community to “pressure the (Israeli) occupation to allow the entry of cooking gas.”

Since the beginning of the Israeli war on the strip, Israel has been preventing the entry of cooking gas into northern Gaza areas, while allowing limited quantities into southern Gaza areas.

Flouting the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling, Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 76,900 injured since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.

“A deplorable number of children have also been injured amid intense and often indiscriminate attacks,” it wrote on X.

“An immediate cease-fire is the last hope remaining.”

Flouting the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling, Israel continues its onslaught on Gaza where at least 34,400 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 76,900 injured since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Hostilities have continued unabated and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.

Funerals were held on Saturday for those killed in the deadly strike on Rafah’s western Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood the night before, according to Gaza’s civil defence.

At al-Najjar Hospital, the site of the area’s main morgue, relatives sobbed and hugged white-shrouded children’s bodies.

“Hamza my beloved. Your hair looks so pretty,” a mourning grandmother said.

The fatalities included Abdel-Fattah Sobhi Radwan, his wife Najlaa Ahmed Aweidah and their three children, according to his brother-in-law Ahmed Barhoum. Barhoum lost his wife, Rawan Radwan, and their five-year-old daughter, Alaa.

“This is a world devoid of all human values and morals,” Barhoum told The Associated Press, crying as he gently rocked Alaa’s body.

“They bombed a house full of displaced people, women and children. The only martyrs were women and children.”

The scene of bodies being transferred from al-Najjar Hospital to their final burial was heartbreaking, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud stated, reporting from Rafah.

“The majority were children, wrapped in white sheets soaked in blood … We spoke to a doctor from the hospital [where the children were brought] who described them as having devastating wounds, soaked in blood,” he added.

“Their burns were so bad that even if they made it to the hospital alive, they would have quickly lost their lives because there’s no way such injuries could be treated right away given the current situation.”

Al Jazeera’s reporters said the Israeli military continued its assault on the city on Saturday.

“There has been no let-up in the fighting,” stated correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum.

Israel has been promising a major invasion into Rafah, which hosts more than half of Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million and is the only area in the territory to have been spared Israel’s ground forces so far.

According to two Gaza war monitors, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), United States and Israeli officials held a high-level “virtual meeting” on Thursday to discuss a Rafah incursion.

The US-based think-tanks said Israel shared with the US its plan to move some 1.4 million Palestinian civilians out of Rafah ahead of its promised ground invasion; however, the plan did not include “concepts for access to food, water and other civil services” according to reports.

Al Jazeera’s Abu Azzoum added Rafah has been witnessing a surge of Israeli military strikes in the past couple of weeks and these attacks could be seen as a sign that further military incursion could be carried out, specifically in light of Israel’s mobilisation of its troops near the border with Rafah.

“Right now, we are in central Rafah, and we can clearly see in the sky above the Kuwaiti Hospital, at least four Israeli military surveillance drones, hovering at a very low altitude.”

“Different areas have been attacked in Rafah … One of the latest strikes targeted an empty house on the western side of that very densely populated area.”

Additionally, there were Israeli strikes on other areas of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, including the Jabalia, Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps, the correspondent continued.

More than 34,000 people have been killed and over 76,900 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7.