US-based charity World Central Kitchen said Tuesday it was pausing its Gaza aid operations after seven of its staff were killed in a "targeted Israeli strike" as they unloaded desperately needed food aid delivered by sea from Cyprus.
Monday's deaths came as the Israeli army wrapped up a two-week assault and siege in and around the Al-Shifa Hospital which reduced the besieged territory's largest medical complex to charred ruins.
Israel has come under immense pressure to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza which has dwindled to a trickle after almost six months of war.
A UN-backed report warned last month that half of Gazans were feeling "catastrophic" hunger and projected imminent famine in the territory's north.
