According to the Gaza Health Ministry, severe food shortages in Gaza have caused the deaths of 27 people, most of them children, due to malnutrition and dehydration.
Amnesty Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said the air drops and seaborne aid supplies were “a sign of the powerlessness and weakness of the international community”.
“The international community must be prepared to hold Israel accountable” and demand on-the-ground access to aid, he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a planned temporary pier to land aid was “a complement to other ways of getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza, not a substitute”.
“The underground route is the most important way to get aid,” he said, arguing that protecting and aiding civilians should be Israel's “number one job.”
Weeks of talks involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators were aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, but missed Monday's deadline.
About half a dozen Arab and Western countries have parachuted food into Gaza, and Morocco has sent a plane of relief supplies via Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.
Fahd al-Ghoul, a resident of Jabaliya camp in the north, said: “We have been fasting against our will for two months or more.” “Now with Ramadan, nothing changes in our reality,” the 50-year-old man said.