Women and children look out from a damaged building as Palestinians carry aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel, in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, August 2, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Six more people died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza over the past 24 hours, its health ministry said, underlining the enclave's humanitarian emergency as Egyptian state TV said two trucks were set to make a rare delivery of fuel on Sunday.

The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from what international humanitarian agencies say may be an unfolding famine to 175, including 93 children, since the war began, the ministry said.

Humanitarian aid packages are airdropped over the Gaza Strip, as seen from Israel, August 3, 2025. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV said two trucks carrying 107 tons of diesel were set to enter Gaza, months after Israel severely restricted aid access to the enclave before easing it somewhat as starvation began to spread.

Displaced Palestinian mother Zainab Dakka eats canned beans with her children inside their tent, from the aid she brought back after an aid delivery that entered Gaza through Israel, in Gaza City, August 1, 2025. REUTERS/Ebrahim Hajjaj

Gaza's health ministry has said fuel shortages have severely impaired hospital services, forcing doctors to focus on treating only critically ill or injured patients. There was no immediate confirmation whether the fuel trucks had indeed entered Gaza.

Fuel shipments have been rare since March, when Israel restricted the flow of aid and goods into the enclave in what it said was pressure on Hamas militants to free the remaining hostages they took in their October 2023 attack on Israel.

An aircraft drops humanitarian aid packages over the Gaza Strip, as seen from Israel, August 3, 2025. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza but, in response to a rising international outcry, it announced steps last week to let more aid reach the population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, approving air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.

FILE PHOTO: Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, July 31, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

United Nations agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and open up access to the war-devastated territory where starvation has been spreading.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, said 35 trucks have entered Gaza since June, nearly all of them in July.

LOOTED AID TRUCKS

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Sunday that nearly 1,600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions late in July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs.

More than 700 trucks of fuel entered the Gaza Strip in January and February during a ceasefire before Israel broke it in March in a dispute over terms for extending it and resumed its major offensive.

Palestinian local health authorities said at least 40 people had been killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes across the coastal enclave on Sunday. Deaths included persons trying to make their way to aid distribution points in southern and central areas of Gaza, Palestinian medics said.

Among those killed was a staff member of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which said an Israeli strike at their headquarters in Khan Younis in southern Gaza ignited a fire on the first floor of the building.

The Gaza war began when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in a cross-border attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's air and ground war in densely populated Gaza has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to enclave health officials.

According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

(Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Jaida Taha; additional reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din and Maayan Lubell; editing by William Mallard, Toby Chopra and Mark Heinrich)