The United Nations reported that a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents were facing the risk of famine.

Around ninety trucks carrying aid have entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Source: Getty / Amir Levy

“Some bakeries will begin receiving flour to produce bread, and we expect the distribution of bread to begin later today,” Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network in Gaza, told the Reuters news agency.

“During the ceasefire, 600 trucks used to enter every day, which means that the current quantity is a drop in the ocean, nothing,” he said.

Workers are producing bread for distribution at the World Food Programme (WFP) bakery after a small amount of flour was allowed into the Gaza Strip. Source: Getty / Anadolu

Bakeries backed by the UN’s World Food Programme would produce the bread and the agency’s staff would hand it out — a more controlled system than previously when bakers sold it directly to the public at a low cost, he added.

Palestinians have been scrambling for basic supplies, with Israel’s blockade leading to critical food and medicine shortages.

UN agencies have said that the amount of aid entering Gaza falls far short of what is required to ease the crisis.

“For them, I fear hunger and disease more than I do Israeli bombardment,” the 38-year-old added.

Israel orders evacuation of parts of northern Gaza

In a statement released in Arabic on Thursday, the military claimed it was “operating with intense force” in 14 locations in the northern Gaza Strip, accusing “terrorist organizations” of being active there.

Israeli strikes have continued along the Gaza Strip. Source: AAP / Mohammed Saber/EPA

As the first aid arrived since the blockade, Israeli military strikes on Gaza killed at least 52 Palestinians across the enclave on Thursday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.

In Beit Lahiya on the northern edge of the enclave, a tank shell hit a medicine warehouse inside Al-Awda Hospital and set it ablaze, the health ministry said.

But if they were not returned, he said it would press ahead with a military campaign to gain total control of Gaza.