Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that no one in Gaza is starving: "There is no starvation policy in Gaza and there is no hunger in Gaza. "We've been allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza throughout the war - otherwise there would be no Gazans," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump said Monday he disagreed with Netanyahu's claim that there was no hunger in Gaza, noting emerging images of starving people: "These children look very hungry."
After international pressure, Israel announced humanitarian pauses, airdrops and other measures over the weekend aimed at allowing more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But people there say little or nothing has changed on the ground. The UN described it as a one-week aid increase, and Israel has not said how long the latest measures will last.
Israel says Hamas is responsible for the aid not reaching Palestinians in Gaza and accuses its militants of misusing aid to prop up its rule of the territory. The UN denies that the looting of aid is systematic and has said that looting decreases or stops altogether when enough aid is allowed into Gaza.
The World Health Organization said on Sunday that there had been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of 5 - compared with a total of 11 deaths in the previous six months of the year.
Gaza's health ministry put the number even higher, reporting 82 malnutrition-related deaths this month: 24 children and 58 adults. On Monday, it reported 14 deaths in the past 24 hours. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, is run by medical professionals and is considered by the UN to be the most reliable source of casualty figures. UN agencies often confirm the figures through other partners on the ground.
The Patient Friend Hospital, the main emergency centre for malnourished children in northern Gaza, said it had recorded its first malnutrition deaths this month among children who had no pre-existing medical conditions. Some of the adults who died had underlying conditions such as diabetes or heart or kidney disease that had been exacerbated by the hunger, according to medical officials in Gaza.
The WHO also reported that acute malnutrition in northern Gaza had tripled this month, reaching almost one in five children under the age of five, and had doubled in central and southern Gaza. The UN says Gaza's only four specialized malnutrition treatment centers are "overwhelmed".
The leading international authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has warned for months of a famine in Gaza but has not officially declared one, citing a lack of data as Israel restricts access to the territory.
The measures announced by Israel late Saturday include 10-hour daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in three densely populated areas so that UN trucks can more easily distribute food.
However, UN World Food Programme spokesman Martin Penner said that the agency's 55 aid trucks that entered Gaza on Monday through the Zikim and Kerem Shalom crossings were looted by starving people before reaching the warehouses. World Food Program.
Experts say the airdrops, another measure announced by Israel, are inadequate for the vast needs in Gaza and dangerous for people on the ground. The Israeli military said 48 food parcels were dropped on Sunday and Monday.
The Palestinians say they want a full return to the UN-run aid distribution system that has been in place throughout the war, rather than the Israeli-backed mechanism that began in May. Witnesses and health workers say Israeli forces have killed hundreds by opening fire on Palestinians trying to reach these food distribution centers or as they crowd around aid trucks. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots to dispel the threats.
The UN and partners say the best way to get food into Gaza is by truck and have repeatedly called on Israel to ease entry restrictions. One truck carries approximately 19 tons of supplies.
The Israeli military reported that as of July 21, 95,435 aid trucks had entered Gaza since the war began. That's an average of 146 trucks a day, far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the UN says are needed.
Sometimes the rate has been half that for months. Nothing has entered for two and a half months, starting in March, because Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, fuel and other supplies entering Gaza.
The UN says that delivering aid authorized for Gaza is becoming increasingly difficult.
When aid does enter, it is left just beyond the Gaza border, and the UN must get permission from the Israeli army to send trucks to pick it up. But the UN says the military has refused or obstructed just over half of the requests for its trucks to transport aid in the past three months.
If the UN manages to get the aid, hungry crowds and armed gangs raid the convoys and loot the supplies. Hamas-run civilian police once provided security along some routes, but that has stopped after Israel attacked them with airstrikes.