People in the sealed-off Gaza Strip lack food, water and medicine.

In light of the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, the US and Israel want to divert their humanitarian aid past the Islamist Hamas and into the sealed-off coastal area. Although the situation for the civilian population is already extremely difficult due to a lack of food and medicine, as well as the heavy Israeli attacks, the security cabinet plans to decide on a possible expansion of the offensive against Hamas on Sunday, according to media reports. In neighboring Syria, there were new attacks by the Israeli Air Force – according to human rights activists, the heaviest since the beginning of the year.

An agreement between the US, Israel, and a new international foundation to distribute aid in the densely populated Gaza Strip is nearing completion, according to a report by the news portal Axios. A private US company will organize distribution at several locations within the largely devastated coastal area and ensure security. Palestinian families will receive a food package once a week, according to the report.

For about two months, the Israeli military has stopped allowing aid shipments into the sealed-off strip of land. The armed forces accuse the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas of selling the aid supplies to the suffering population at inflated prices and using the proceeds to pay its fighters and weapons. Aid organizations recently warned that their food reserves in the Gaza Strip were running low.

"We have to be good to Gaza. The people there are suffering. There is a great need for food and medicine, and we are taking care of it," said US President Donald Trump recently after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics, however, accuse the Israeli leadership of having caused this acute shortage in the first place through its style of waging war.

Meanwhile, according to Palestinian sources, several people were again killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. Ten victims – including minors – were reported when a family's home in Al-Bureij, in the center of the area, was hit, according to staff at the nearby Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Six more Palestinians were also killed in an Israeli attack on a soup kitchen in Gaza City, according to medical sources. These reports could not be verified at this time.

At the planned meeting of the Israeli security cabinet on Sunday, a decision will be made on a possible expansion of the military offensive and the mobilization of several reserve brigades, the news portal "walla.co.il" reported. Israel intends to use the attacks to exert additional pressure on Hamas to force the Islamists to release more hostages.

In light of the ongoing fighting between members of the Druze minority and pro-government militias in Syria, the Israeli armed forces also attacked several military positions in the neighboring country. They targeted a military installation, anti-aircraft guns, and missile sites in Syria, the army announced. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the airstrikes were the most intense Israeli attack since the beginning of the year.

According to the Observatory, more than 20 airstrikes hit targets in the outskirts of the capital Damascus, a missile site in the Daraa district in the southwest of the country, and an air defense unit in Latakia on the Mediterranean coast. This brings the total number of Israeli airstrikes destroyed in Syria to 79 in 52 since the beginning of the year.

More than 100 people were recently killed in violent clashes between Sunni militias and Druze gunmen. The Druze are a religious minority whose members live primarily in Syria, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. In Israel, many of them serve voluntarily in the army—the Jewish state sees them as allies.