The United Nations has said its fuel reserves could run out as soon as today, making it impossible to distribute aid to more than two million people in the Gaza Strip. This comes as the World Health Organization warns that Gaza's biggest hospital has become nearly a cemetery with bodies piled up inside and outside. Us President Joe Biden has said, Georgia's main hospital must be protected, appealing for less intrusive military action by the Israeli Defense Forces. The UN says power outages at the Al-Shifah Hospital in northern Gaza mean that dozens of premature babies and 45 kidney dialysis patients can't be treated. The IDF says it's working to transfer incubators. Well, let's go live now to Southern Israel and my colleague, Mark Lowen. Mark, what's the latest that we know about the situation there at Al-Shifah Hospital? Well, I.

Was just actually reading some comments from the manager of the hospital, Catherine, who has spoken to Gaza Lifeline, a meteor outlet saying that the hospital is empty of food, fuel, and water, that seven of those premature babies that our viewers will remember that we saw in those heartbreaking photographs yesterday who were out of incubators because there's a lack of fuel have now died. He was asked whether Israel had made contact with them regarding the transfer of incubators or the evacuation of the babies. He said, No, we reached out to them. Now, this hospital has been very much the center of not only fighting, but claim and counterclaim between the two sides. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says that the hospital is now part of what it calls the Circle of Death. I think what we're facing now is increasing international pressure on Israel to try to halt the fighting around the hospital. President Biden has interven overnight. He said that he has called for Israel to make less intrusive action around the hospital. He said the hospital should be protected. And Rishad Sunnaq, the UK Prime Minister, has said that there should be urgent and substantive pauses in the fighting, particularly around the hospitals.

The hospitals, Israel says, Conceal Hamas Command centers, it says that it is targeting those Hamas control centers underneath the hospital. But of course, still inside the hospitals, we're seeing hundreds of patients trapped there and really dwindling reserves of oxygen and any fuel that remains.

Mark, how is the Israeli government responding to this international pressure? Yesterday, it was talking about taking some fuel reserves to Al-Shifah Hospital. I understand a minister has said that the fighting might go on for several more weeks before a ceasefire could be looked at.

Well, a spokesman for the Foreign Minister here in Israel said that he believes that Israel has 2-3 weeks until the international pressure really steps up. Israel is clearly aware that the clamour for a ceasefire and a clamour for an outrage, actually, of the international community over the plight of the civilians inside Gaza is reaching boiling point, and that even Israel's traditional allies in the West, such as the US, such as France, are pushing ever harder for some humanitarian pause. Israel's policy up until now has always been that there will only be a ceasefire until there's movement on the hostages, 240 or so hostages that were taken by Hamas on the seventh of October. We understand that some deal is nearing, is in the offing to try to release some hostages that were taken on the seventh of October in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian children and women in its prisons here, possibly several dozen who could be released as part of some exchange deal. It has not yet been finalized, though, and until there is some deal that we understand has reached some finalization, I think that there will be no sign of any ceasefire.

But as part of that deal, there could be possibly a five-day pause in the fighting. So that is where we are this morning in terms of the diplomatic to and from in terms of humanitarian pauses and hostage release. But meanwhile, the suffering goes on. I have to say, Catherine, there has been severe rain. It's just been tipping down here this morning. So you can imagine what it would be like for the civilians who are fleeing Northern Gaza. You can imagine what it would be like for the bodies that are being left to rot outside the Shifah Hospital as the rain really comes down this morning and there's forecast of more thunderstorms to come today. So the situation on the ground is only going to get worse as the weather closes in.

Thank you very much. That's the BBC's Mark Lowen there in Southern Israel. Mark will be here throughout the day with more updates from Southern Israel and Kaiser.