Israel to allow aid drops in Gaza amid mounting outrage over hunger crisis

Israel will allow foreign countries to airdrop aid into Gaza starting Friday, an Israeli security source said, as the country faces mounting backlash over a spiraling hunger crisis in the Palestinian enclave.

The airdrops are expected to be carried out in the coming days by the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, according to the security source. Despite pressure for a ceasefire, both Israel and the United States signaled Friday that they were abandoning talks with Hamas.

Israel also said that World Central Kitchen, an international relief organization that has provided food to Palestinians in the enclave throughout the war, had also begun reactivating its kitchens. WCK did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

The organization paused operations in Gaza in November after a number of its workers were killed in an Israeli strike last year, but announced in June it would resume cooking in Gaza.

Past efforts to airdrop aid into Gaza, including by the United States, were heavily criticized as an insufficient and impractical way to get relief to the more than 2 million people suffering in dire conditions under Israeli military assault.

The developments come as Israel faces growing backlash on the international stage, with doctors and aid groups operating in Gaza warning of starvation spreading across the enclave.

More than 100 people had died from “famine and malnutrition,” most of them children, since the war began in the enclave, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said in a statement Wednesday.