Israel's military has released video footage of what it says are airdrops of aid into Gaza and says humanitarian corridors will also be established for United Nations convoys, after increasing accounts of starvation-related deaths.
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See subscription optionsIt follows months of experts' warnings of famine amid Israeli restrictions on aid.
International criticism, including by close allies, has grown as several hundred Palestinians were killed in recent weeks while trying to reach food distribution sites.
The Israeli military said as well as aid drops and corridors, it is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas.
Israel's foreign ministry said the humanitarian pauses would start on Sunday in "civilian centres" along with humanitarian corridors.
The military "emphasises that combat operations have not ceased" in Gaza against Hamas, and it asserted there is "no starvation" in the territory, where most of the population of more than two million has been displaced into a shrinking area with little infrastructure. The majority of people rely on aid.
Later, the Israeli military released video footage of what it said were airdrops in co-ordination with international organisations and led by COGAT, the Israeli defence agency in charge of aid co-ordination in the Palestinian territory.
It said the drop included seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food.
Witness accounts from Gaza have been grim. Some health workers are so weakened by hunger that they put themselves on IV drips to keep treating the badly malnourished. Parents have shown their limp and emaciated children. Wounded men have described desperate dashes for aid under gunfire.
The military statement said airdrops would be conducted in co-ordination with international aid organisations.
It was not clear where they would be carried out. And it wasn't clear what role the recently created and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, meant as an alternate to the UN aid system, might play. GHF chair Johnnie Moore in a statement said the group stood ready to assist.
Israeli airstrikes and gunshots killed at least 53 people in Gaza over Friday night and into Saturday, local time, most of them shot dead while seeking aid, according to Palestinian health officials and the local ambulance service.
Deadly Israeli gunfire was reported twice close to the Zikim crossing with Israel in the north.
In the first incident, at least a dozen people waiting for aid trucks were killed, 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".
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 realised 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.
On Saturday evening local time, Israeli forces killed at least 11 people and wounded 120 others when they fired toward crowds who tried to get food from an entering UN convoy, Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, director of Shifa hospital, told the AP.
"We are expecting the numbers to surge in the next few hours," he said. There was no immediate military comment.
Australian Associated Press
