United Nations has welcomed the increase in aid deliveries into Gaza afforded by a temporary truce but warned it was not enough to even start addressing the Palestinian territory’s massive needs, AFP reports.

UN children’s agency Unicef said the aid flow to the northern Gaza Strip — the largest since the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted on October 7 — was “the right start”.

“(It’s) definitely the right type of aid — fuel, medicines, food, warmth,” spokesman James Elder told a press briefing in Geneva via video link from Gaza.

But, he warned, the needs in the besieged enclave of more than two million are so huge that “all this aid is triage… It’s not even enough for triage.”

“The aid needs to multiply… Everything here is emergency care right now,” Elder said.

Margaret Harris of the World Health Organisation agreed. “The needs are massive. The amount of aid we’ve been able to get in is a trickle still,” the WHO spokeswoman told the briefing.