Israeli military says airdrops of aid into Gaza set to begin tonight amid increased starvation deaths

Airdrops of aid will begin Saturday night in Gaza and humanitarian corridors will be established for United Nations convoys, the Israeli military said, amid increased international pressure and accounts of starvation-related deaths in the territory.

In a statement issued late Saturday, the Israeli Defense Forces said it has begun a series of actions “aimed at improving the humanitarian response” in the territory and to “refute the false claims of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.”

The statement came after increasing accounts of starvation-related deaths in Gaza following months of experts’ warnings of famine. International criticism, including from close allies, has grown as several hundred Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying to reach aid.

“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the statement said.

The IDF statement did not say when the humanitarian corridors for U.N. convoys would open, or where. The IDF also said it is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas.

The statement also made clear “that combat operations have not ceased” in Gaza against Hamas. And it reiterated the IDF’s position that there is “no starvation” in the territory.

For months, the United Nations and experts have warned that Palestinians in Gaza are at risk of famine, with reports of increasing numbers of people dying from causes related to malnutrition. While Israel’s army says it’s allowing aid into the enclave with no limit on the number of trucks that can enter, the U.N. says it is hampered by Israeli military restrictions on its movements and incidents of criminal looting.

Since easing the blockade in May, Israel has allowed in around 4,500 trucks for the U.N. and other aid groups to distribute, including 2,500 tons of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said last week.

Israel on Saturday said over 250 trucks carrying aid from the U.N. and other organizations entered Gaza this week. About 600 trucks entered per day during the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March.

Israel is facing increased international pressure to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More than two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out.

For the first time in months, Israel said it is allowing airdrops, as requested by neighboring Jordan. A Jordanian official said the airdrops will mainly be food and milk formula.

Britain plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said Saturday. His office did not give details.

“Israel must allow aid in over land to end the starvation unfolding in Gaza,” Starmer said in a post on X. “The situation is desperate. We are working with Jordan to get aid into Gaza. We are urgently accelerating efforts to evacuate children who need critical medical assistance to the UK for treatment. I am determined to find a pathway to peace.”

However, the planned airdrops won’t do much to help quench the severe food shortages, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned.

“Airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X on Saturday. “They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians. It is a distraction & screensmoke.”

He said the “manmade hunger” can only be addressed by Israel lifting the restrictions on aid into Gaza and guaranteeing the “safe movements + dignified access to people in need.”

At least 53 Palestinians killed by Israeli gunshots and strikes

At least 53 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunshots overnight and into Saturday, according to Palestinian hospital officials and the local ambulance service on Saturday, as ceasefire talks appear to have stalled.

Gunfire killed at least a dozen people waiting for aid trucks close to the Zikim crossing with Israel in the north, said staff at Shifa hospital, where bodies were taken. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots to distance a crowd “in response to an immediate threat,” and it was not aware of any casualties.

A witness, Sherif Abu Aisha, said people started running when they saw a light that they thought was from aid trucks, but as they got close, they realized it was Israel’s tanks. That’s when the army started firing, he told The Associated Press. He said his uncle was among those killed.

“We went because there is no food … and nothing was distributed,” he said.

Elsewhere, those killed in strikes included four people in an apartment building in Gaza City, hospital staff and the ambulance service said. Another Israeli strike killed at least eight people, including four children, in the crowded tent camp of Muwasi in the city of Khan Younis in the south, according to the Nasser hospital, which received the bodies.

Also in Khan Younis, Israeli forces opened fire and killed at least nine people trying to get aid entering Gaza through the Morag corridor, according to the hospital’s morgue records. There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military.

The strikes come as ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have hit a standstill after the U.S and Israel recalled their negotiating teams on Thursday, throwing the future of the talks into further uncertainty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday his government was considering “alternative options” to ceasefire talks with Hamas. His comments came as a Hamas official said negotiations were expected to resume next week and portrayed the recall of the Israeli and American delegations as a pressure tactic.

Egypt and Qatar, which are mediating the talks alongside the United States, said the pause was only temporary and that talks would resume, though they did not say when.

For desperate Palestinians, a ceasefire can’t come soon enough.

Latest child to starve to death weighed less than when she was born

The body of 5-month-old Zainab Abu Halib arrived at the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Friday. She was already dead.

The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).

A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”

Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in the past three weeks, according to the latest toll released by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday. Another 42 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the same period, the health ministry said.

“She needed a special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza,” Zainab’s father, Ahmed Abu Halib, told The Associated Press.

Her mother, who also has suffered from malnutrition, said she breastfed the girl for only six weeks before trying to feed her formula.

“With my daughter’s death, many will follow,” Esraa Abu Halib said. “Their names are on a list that no one looks at. They are just names and numbers. We are just numbers. Our children, whom we carried for nine months and then gave birth to, have become just numbers.”

More than 100 people have died in Gaza from malnutrition since the war started, UNICEF said on Thursday, and 80% were children. The charity said screening in the Palestinian enclave had found 6,000 children in a state of acute malnourishment in June alone, marking a 180% increase since February.

A UNICEF spokesperson told CBS News on Saturday that its supply in Gaza of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, used for treating severely acutely malnourished children, is expected to run out in mid-August if more is not allowed in.

“We are now facing a dire situation, that we are running out of therapeutic supplies,” said Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Amman, Jordan, told Reuters on Thursday.

“That’s really dangerous for children as they face hunger and malnutrition at the moment,” he added.