As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen by the day, Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office, said, "If there is a hell on earth today, its name is northern Gaza."

"People who remain there, the corners of their existence are death, deprivation, despair, displacement, and literally, darkness," Laerke said. "The entire Gaza Strip has been plunged into darkness. … What do you tell your children in such a situation? It's almost unimaginable."

People are fleeing Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, sources confirmed to ABC News, in the wake of a strike on the exterior area of the hospital's outpatient clinic. One surgeon told ABC News "everyone" has fled, calling it a "nightmare."

The hospital has been treating thousands of wounded people and housing as many as 80,000 displaced residents, according to The Associated Press.

The hospital's head of plastic surgery, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, told ABC News he is among the roughly 15% to 20% of staff members still there on Friday.

Although many patients have evacuated, he said, "There is no hospital in Gaza that can accommodate this number of ICU patients -- around 100 ICU patients."

The Palestinian Red Crescent said occupation snipers fired on Gaza's Al-Quds Hospital, killing at least one and injuring at least 28.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Richard Hecht said, "The IDF does not shoot at hospitals. If there are Hamas terrorists in the hospitals, the IDF will do what it needs to, but we are aware of the sensitivity. We tell Hamas to move the sick southward."

"Slowly we are closing in on them and taking every precaution not to harm the innocent," he said.

American diplomats abroad are giving stark warnings about the long-term ramifications of the war, telling their Washington counterparts in multiple diplomatic cables that their work and public opinion of the U.S. in the Arab world could be lost and denigrated for a generation, a State Department source told ABC News.

Diplomatic cables are how U.S. embassies around the world privately communicate with State Department leadership about what U.S. diplomats are seeing on the ground. While some are just regular updates, others contain candid assessments and analysis about what senior embassy staff are seeing on the ground and the potential impacts on U.S. foreign policy or the U.S. standing in the region.

Twelve kids with cancer or other blood disorders have been evacuated with their families from Gaza to Egypt or Jordan so they can continue their treatment, the World Health Organization said.

More kids with cancer are expected to be evacuated, the agency said.

"I am relieved that children in vital need of cancer care have been able to leave the insecurity and uncertainty in Gaza and continue receiving life-saving treatment," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. "This show of desperately needed humanitarian action should serve to motivate increased access to life-saving care to all people affected by this conflict, both inside Gaza where needs are greatest today, and beyond. I pray this initiative can inspire all parties to put health and peace first."

President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed Monday the possibility of "tactical pauses" in strikes on Gaza to help civilians reach safer locations, allow for more humanitarian aid to get in and help work toward the possibility of hostages being released, according to the White House.

"We consider ourselves at the beginning of this conversation, not at the end of it, so you can expect that we're going to continue to advocate for temporary vocalized pauses in the fighting," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

He said less than 30 trucks of humanitarian assistance arrived in Gaza over the past 24 hours, which he said wasn't enough.

“In the early goings here, Israel was very resistant to humanitarian assistance getting in at all, and we persisted. We continue to persist," Kirby said. "Humanitarian aid is getting in, again, not to the degree we want it to, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But, but, my goodness, based on our constant engagement, we've been able to make a big difference."

Kirby said "more Americans" will be leaving Gaza on Monday but he did not provide specific numbers.

Kirby said Biden and Netanyahu also discussed the situation in the West Bank and "reducing threats from terrorist groups that are operating there."

Kirby said their talks would continue and the leaders agreed to speak "in the coming day."

-ABC News' Justin Ryan Gomez