Claire Magone, executive director of the French branch of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has returned from a week-long visit to the Palestinian enclave, saying: “In Gaza, death is everywhere. It’s not just a feeling, it’s palpable. Death lurks, it hovers, it strikes anywhere, anyone,” Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking to French newspaper Le Monde, Magone said she visited MSF teams treating patients as “tanks approached, drones flew over the neighbourhoods, and the water was cut off”.

She told Le Monde: “The army is conducting a strategy of asphyxiation, attacking, for example, water tanker trucks, as it did in mid-September with one of ours, which was clearly identified, and blocking all vital services.”

She added that France had stopped medical evacuations of patients from Gaza since August, and called on the country to “take its share, like the others”.