Five weeks into the Gaza-Israel crisis, the UN’s top emergency relief official on Wednesday reiterated growing international calls for the warring parties to de-escalate, while expressing solidarity with hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by bombardment and an order from the Israeli military to leave the north of the enclave.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Martin Griffiths highlighted the plight of patients at Gaza City’s embattled Al-Shifa hospital, amid reports that medics have been trying to keep newborns warm in swaddling blankets because power for incubators has failed.

The top UN official also called for fuel to be allowed into the Strip so that humanitarian convoys can operate.

“Our role and our pledge and our message is, we are right there sitting in front of those people on the borders of Gaza in Rafah, ready to go at the right scale if we get the means to do so,” he said.

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