Israel will allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza from today, Israeli army radio has said, quoting a military official.
An Israeli military spokesperson did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
The Gaza health ministry has said more than 100 people have died from starvation in the Palestinian enclave since Israel cut off supplies to the territory in March.
Israel lifted that blockade in May but has restrictions in place that it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.
In the first two weeks of July, the UN children’s agency UNICEF treated 5,000 children facing acute malnutrition in Gaza.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that Gaza was suffering man-made mass starvation caused by a blockade on aid into the enclave.
Watch: UNICEF says food to treat malnourished children in Gaza is running out
Aid groups have warned of surging numbers of malnourished children in war-ravaged Gaza as a trio of European powers prepared to hold an “emergency call” on the deepening humanitarian crisis.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the United Nations said one-in-five children in Gaza city were suffering from malnutrition.
With fears of mass starvation growing, Britain, France and Germany were set to hold an emergency call to push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and discuss steps towards Palestinian statehood.
Read more: Doctor accuses IDF of ‘playing a game’ in Gaza shootings
“I will hold an emergency call with E3 partners tomorrow, where we will discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need while pulling together all the steps necessary to build a lasting peace,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.
The call comes after hopes of a new ceasefire in Gaza faded yesterday when Israel and the United States quit indirect negotiations with Hamas in Qatar.
US envoy Steve Witkoff accused the Palestinian militant group of not “acting in good faith”.
‘Mass starvation’
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that one in five children in Gaza city were malnourished
More than 100 aid and human rights groups warned this week that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza.
Israel has rejected accusations it is responsible for the deepening crisis, which the World Health Organization has called “man-made”.
Israel placed Gaza under an aid blockade in March, which it only partially eased two months later.
The trickle of aid since then has been controlled by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, replacing the longstanding UN-led distribution system.
Read more: Israel, US reject French move to recognise Palestinian state
Aid groups have refused to work with the GHF, accusing it of aiding Israeli military goals.
The GHF system, in which Gazans have to travel long distances and join huge queues to reach one of four sites, has often proved deadly, with the UN saying that more than 750 Palestinian aid-seekers have been killed by Israeli forces near GHF centres since late May.
An AFP photographer saw bloodied patients, wounded while attempting to get humanitarian aid, being treated on the floor of Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis yesterday.
Israel has refused to return to the UN-led system, saying that it allowed Hamas to hijack aid for its own benefit.
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Accusing Israel of the “weaponisation of food”, MSF said that: “Across screenings of children aged six months to five years old and pregnant and breastfeeding women, at MSF facilities last week, 25% were malnourished.”
It said malnutrition cases had quadrupled since 18 May at its Gaza city clinic and that the facility was enrolling 25 new malnourished patients every day.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,587 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
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