The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency has called for a temporary truce to allow people to leave areas of northern Gaza as health officials said they were running out of supplies to treat patients hurt in a three-week-old Israeli offensive, Reuters reports.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA relief agency, said the humanitarian situation had reached a dire point, with bodies abandoned by roadsides or buried under rubble.

“In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die,” he said in a statement on social media platform X. “They feel deserted, hopeless and alone.”

“I am calling for an immediate truce, even if for a few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area & reach safer places,” he said.

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