EU's aid chief urges 'meaningful' pauses in besieged Gaza

The EU's humanitarian aid chief has called for "meaningful" pauses in the war in besieged Gaza and urgent deliveries of fuel to keep hospitals working in the territory.

"It is urgent to define and respect humanitarian pauses," Janez Lenarcic, European Commissioner for Crisis Management, told on Monday at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Brussels.

"Fuel needs to get in. As you could see, more than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip stopped working, primarily because of lack of fuel, and fuel is desperately needed."

Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said that hospitals in Gaza should not be turned into "battlefields".

"Patients who are in intensive care units have no chance," he said.

"There is no more oxygen, there is no more water, there are no more medicines. So these people are going to die."

The appeal went out as battles between Israeli and Hamas forces have raged around Gaza's largest hospital, which has become the focus in the five-week-old war.

The Gaza health ministry said Monday the hospitals in the centre of the heaviest fighting in north Gaza have been forced out of service amid shortages and the fierce combat.

'Immediate humanitarian pauses'

The EU's 27 countries issued a statement on Sunday saying hospitals "must be protected"..

The bloc demanded "immediate humanitarian pauses" to allow desperately needed aid into the besieged territory.

"These pauses have to be meaningful," Lenarcic said.

"First of all, they have to be announced well in advance of the implementation so organisations can prepare to exploit them. Second, they have to be clearly defined time-wise."

Humanitarian crisis

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisted that "Gaza needs more aid from any point of view".

"Water, fuel, food. This aid is available, is in the border waiting to come in," he said.

Borrell announced that he would travel to "Israel, Palestine, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan this week to discuss humanitarian access and assistance and political issues with regional leaders".

The Israeli army is pushing on with its relentless strikes with the claim of destroying Hamas who launched the Oct. 7 attacks with killing at least 1,200 people, and taking about 240 hostages in the country's worst-ever attack.

But Israel is facing intense international pressure to minimise civilian suffering amid its massive air and ground operation, which killed 11,180 people, including 4,609 children according to Gazan officials.

Israel said 44 of its troops have been killed in the Gaza offensive.