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The statement late Saturday followed months of experts’ warnings of famine amid Israeli restrictions on aid. International criticism grew as several hundred Palestinians were killed in recent weeks while trying to reach food distribution sites.

The military statement did not say where the airdrops or humanitarian corridors would be. It also said the military was prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas. Israel’s foreign ministry said late Saturday the humanitarian pauses would start Sunday in “civilian centers� along with humanitarian corridors.

It wasn't clear what role the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created as an alternate to the U.N. aid system, might play. GHF chair Johnnie Moore said the group was ready to assist.

Later, the Israeli military released video footage of what it said were airdrops in coordination with international organizations and led by COGAT, the Israeli defense agency in charge of aid coordination in the Palestinian territory. It said the drop included seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food.

The military said it “emphasizes that combat operations have not ceased� in Gaza against Hamas militants, and it asserted there is “no starvation� in the territory.

Witness accounts from Gaza are grim. Some health workers are so weakened by hunger, they put themselves on IV drips to keep treating the badly malnourished. Parents showed their limp and emaciated children. Wounded men described desperate dashes for aid under gunfire.

At least 53 killed

Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 53 people in Gaza overnight and into Saturday, most of them shot dead while seeking aid, Palestinian health officials and the ambulance service reported.

Deadly Israeli gunfire was reported twice within hours 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" and it was not aware of 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 said. His uncle was among those killed.

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

On Saturday evening, Israeli forces killed at least 11 people and wounded 120 others when they fired toward crowds who tried to get food from an entering U.N. convoy, said Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, director of Shifa hospital.

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, including four children, in the tent camp of Muwasi in the city of Khan Younis, Nasser hospital said.

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.

A Hamas official said stalled ceasefire negotiations were expected to resume this coming week and called the Israeli and U.S. recall of negotiators a pressure tactic. Egypt and Qatar, which mediate alongside the U.S., also called the pause temporary.

"Our loved ones do not have time for another round of negotiations, and they will not survive another partial deal," said Zahiro Shahar Mor, nephew of Avraham Munder, one of 50 hostages still in Gaza from Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. Mor spoke at a weekly rally in Tel Aviv.

Children starving to death

In Gaza, children with no preexisting conditions began to starve to death.

While Israel's army said it's allowing aid into the enclave with no limit on the trucks, the U.N. says it is hampered by military restrictions on its movements and criminal looting.

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

Meanwhile, an activist boat trying to reach Gaza with aid, the Handala, livestreamed video showing Israeli forces boarding about midnight.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said on social media that the navy stopped a vessel it identified as the Navarn from entering Palestinian territorial waters. “Unauthorized attempts to breach the blockade are dangerous, unlawful, and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts,� it said.

More than two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel's blockade and the new aid delivery model it rolled out.

More than 59,700 Palestinians were killed in the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas government. It doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians in its count but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

More than 1,000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food, mostly near the new aid sites run by the GHF, an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office says.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, warned that airdrops are "expensive, inefficient and can even kill starving civilians" and won't reverse the increasing starvation or prevent aid diversion.