Hamas warned in a statement that the incident could lead to the failure of talks aimed at a deal on a truce and hostage release.

“The negotiations conducted by the movement’s leadership are not an open process at the expense of the blood of our people,” it said, referring to Thursday’s deaths and saying Israel would be responsible for any failure of the talks.

Referring to the incident, an Israeli military spokesperson said: “There is no knowledge of Israeli shelling in the area.”

Children die of hunger after UN warnings

Earlier, six children were reported to have died and seven others were in a critical condition due to dehydration and malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, the territory’s Health Ministry said on Thursday (AEDT).

Four children died at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. The hospital administration had announced earlier that it was halting operations as the facility had run out of fuel.

The Israeli military said it was checking the report.

According to Al Arabiya English and Al Jazeera, the Hamas-run Health Ministry also confirmed two children died of malnutrition at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Wednesday.

It appears to be the first time the ministry has confirmed child deaths of malnutrition, and comes after repeated warnings by the World Food Program and other UN organisations that Gazans were on the brink of famine.

At the same time, a US official said the Biden administration was considering airdropping aid from US military planes into Gaza as land deliveries have become increasingly difficult. But Axios, which first reported the US was considering airdrops, cited American officials as saying that aid airdrops would have a limited effect since a military plane can only drop the amount of supplies equivalent to that transported by one or two trucks. Canada also said it would airdrop humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.

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At least 576,000 people in the enclave – one-quarter of the population there – are one step away from famine, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It said on Tuesday that aid groups faced “overwhelming obstacles just to get a bare minimum of supplies into Gaza”.

One in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition, and practically all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on “woefully inadequate” food aid to survive, it added.

Reuters this week reported on three children who, after surviving on bitter loaves made from animal feed instead of proper flour, fled their home in Gaza City for a tent further south to find food.

Saad Shehada, 11, said the bread was bitter. “We didn’t want to eat it. We were forced to eat it, one small loaf every two days,” he said, adding that they drank salty water and got sick, and there was no way to wash themselves or their clothes.

He ran away with his brothers Seraj, 8, and Ismail, 9, in secret to take refuge with their aunt in her tent in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

“When we were in Gaza City, we used to eat nothing. We would eat every two days,” said Seraj, speaking as the three boys tucked into a tub of halawa, a sweet crumbly paste.

“We would eat bird and donkey food, just anything,” he said, referring to loaves made from grains and seeds meant for animal consumption. “Day after day, not this food.”

The boys’ aunt, Eman Shehada, was caring for them as best she could. Heavily pregnant, she said she had lost her husband in the war and was left alone with her daughter, a toddler, but had to stop breastfeeding her.

“I am not getting the nutrition needed, so I feel tired and dizzy,” she said.

Food shortages have been a problem across Gaza since October, but are particularly acute in the north, where aid deliveries have been rarer for longer.

Some of the few aid trucks to reach the north have been mobbed by desperate, hungry crowds, while aid workers have reported seeing people thin and visibly starving with sunken eyes.

In central Gaza the situation is marginally better, but still far from easy.

In an interview with The Guardian, a UN-appointed expert on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, accused Israel of “intentionally depriving people of food” in Gaza, saying this “is clearly a war crime”.

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Israel’s Deputy UN ambassador Jonathan Miller said on Tuesday that his country was committed to improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza and that the quantity and pace of aid depended on the capacity of the UN and other agencies.

A convoy of 31 trucks carrying food entered northern Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military office that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs said. The office, known by the acronym COGAT, said nearly 20 other trucks entered the north on Monday and Tuesday. Associated Press footage showed people carrying sacks of flour from the distribution site.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the deliveries. The UN was not involved, said Eri Kaneko, a spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian co-ordination office.