The United Nations says Gaza is on the verge of collapse after the 14-day Israeli onslaught. In a statement the International Committee of the Red Cross said the Israeli military has "failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded."
The group says that on Wednesday one of its teams was finally granted permission by the Israel Defense Forces to enter Gaza City's Zaytoun neighborhood.
Once there, they found "four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Avital Leibovich says that Israel has not received a formal complaint from the Red Cross group and that the military does not respond to press releases.
She stressed that Hamas uses civilians and civilian neighborhoods to hide and that the responsibility of its soldiers in the field is to protect themselves.
As the death toll has mounted, demonstrators have been holding protests around the world. Today hundreds of people marched through the Southern Israeli town of Hebron, carrying Hamas flags and chanting "Palestine is all Hamas."
An ABC News team covering the Hamas-organized protest reported clashes after an Israeli patrol started firing tear gas toward the crowd. The crowd threw rocks and initially drove vehicles back before defense forces responded with more gas and drove the crowd back.
For a third day Israel allowed for a three-hour cease-fire to allow food and medical aid into Gaza to help its blockaded residents. Eighty percent of Gazans rely on outside aid to survive. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the largest aid organization in Gaza, says it is suspending its Gaza operations after another one of its truck drivers was killed in an Israeli attack.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the relief agency, said all movement for its workers in Gaza would cease until the Israel Defense Forces could agree to a "guaranteed mechanism not to fire at U.N. vehicles." Gunness said the agency's food distribution centers and health centers had supplies to last for a few days without resupply.
During the three-hour cease-fire Thursday, Hamas fired several rockets into Israeli cities. Israel's military did not fire back. Israel allowed 89 trucks of emergency aid to flow into Gaza Thursday; 80 are scheduled for today. The United Nations says it needs a monthlong cease-fire to bring real relief to Gaza.
Sami Zyara contributed to the reporting of this story from Gaza; Bruno Roeber from Hebron; and Matthew McGarry, Bruno Nota and Dana Savir from Jerusalem.
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