A top UN aid official has questioned “what has become of our basic humanity,” as fighting in Gaza rages and humanitarian operations struggle to respond, AFP reports.

Joyce Msuya, acting head of the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), said that “we cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance because we struggle to know what supplies we will have, when we will have them or where we will be able to deliver.”

“Civilians are hungry. They are thirsty. They are sick. They are homeless. They have been pushed beyond… what any human being should bear,” she told the Security Council.

Msuya’s comments came after the UN had to halt the movement of aid and aid workers within Gaza on Monday due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir al-Balah area, which had become a hub for its workers.

“More than 88 per cent of Gaza’s territory has come under an (Israeli) order to evacuate at some point,” Msuya said, adding that civilians, “in a state of limbo,” were being forced into an area equivalent to just 11pc of the Gaza Strip.

“The evacuation orders appear to defy the requirements of international humanitarian law,” she added.