The World Health Organisation (WHO) has calculated the grim daily death toll of Palestinian children, as Israel continues its war on Hamas with imminent plans to storm Gaza City.

A spokesman for the UN agency said an average of 160 children were being killed each day in Gaza.

Christian Lindmeier said the level of suffering and hardship in the war-torn and under-siege strip of land was hard to fathom.

“Nothing justifies the horror being endured by the civilians in Gaza,” he said.

Israel has unrelentingly bombarded Hamas-run Gaza, killing more than 10,000 people, around 40 per cent of them children, according to tallies by health officials there.

“It has been one full month of carnage, of incessant suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage and despair,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Volcker Turk said in a statement at the start of a trip to the region.

Earlier UN chief Antonio Guterres said the Gaza Strip had become a graveyard for children.

He said 89 United Nations workers killed while coming to the aid of Palestinian refugees was the highest in the organisation’s history.

Injured Palestinian children seek help at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Photo: Getty

Dark milestone

Israelis have marked one month since the savage attack by Hamas militants on October 7 which triggered the war. Hamas fighters burst across the fence and killed 1400 Israelis and abducted more than 200, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel said on Wednesday (AEDT) its forces had surrounded Gaza City, home to a third of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, and were poised to attack.

Palestinians still trapped inside were given a four-hour window to leave.

“For your safety, take this next opportunity to move south beyond Wadi Gaza,” the military announced, referring to the wetlands that bisect the strip.

Gaza’s interior ministry says 900,000 Palestinians were still sheltering in northern Gaza including Gaza City.

“The most dangerous trip in my life. We saw the tanks from point blank (range). We saw decomposed body parts. We saw death,” resident Adam Fayez Zeyara posted with a selfie of himself on the road out of Gaza City.

Hamas says Israel forced fleeing Palestinians to hold white flags as they fled to humiliate them.

In some of the first direct comments on Israel’s plans for the future of Gaza after the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take over responsibility for the territory’s security once it defeated the militants.

Israeli forces have relied on air and artillery strikes to clear a path for their ground offensive.

While Israel’s military operation is focused on the northern half of Gaza, the south has also come under attack. Palestinian health officials said at least 23 people were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes early on Tuesday in the southern Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

“We are civilians,” said Ahmed Ayesh, who was rescued from the rubble of a house in Khan Younis where health officials said 11 people had been killed.

“This is the bravery of the so-called Israel – they show their might and power against civilians, babies inside, kids inside, and elderly.”

As he spoke, rescuers at the house used their hands to try to free a girl buried up to her waist in debris.

Palestinian women with their children fleeing from their homes. Photo: Getty

Netanyahu said Israel would consider “tactical little pauses” in Gaza fighting to let hostages leave or emergency aid to enter but he again rejected international calls for a ceasefire.

Gaza services are close to “breaking point” without fuel supplies, the UN humanitarian office said. Gaza’s interior ministry said all bakeries in the north were out of service due to Israeli attacks and lack of fuel.

Israel has given few clear indications about what fate it sees for Gaza when the war is over.

Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005, and two years later, Hamas took power there, defeating the Palestinian Authority (PA) which exercises limited self-rule in a separate, Israeli-occupied territory, the West Bank.

Asked who would be responsible for security in Gaza after Hamas was defeated, Netanyahu told US television’s ABC News: “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility.”

The White House, however, does not favour Israeli re-occupation.

“It’s not good for Israel, it’s not good for the Israeli people,” spokesman John Kirby told CNN.

“Whatever it is, it can’t be what it was on October 6. It can’t be Hamas.”