The amount of aid entering Gaza remains"very insufficient" despite a limited improvement, the German government said on Saturday after ministers discussed ways to heighten pressure on Israel.
The criticism came after Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the region on Thursday and Friday and the German military staged its first food airdrops into Gaza, where aid agencies say that more than two million Palestinians are facing starvation due to Israel's severe restrictions on the amount of food entering the besieged territory.
Germany"notes limited initial progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza Strip, which, however, remains very insufficient to alleviate the emergency situation", government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in a statement.
"Israel remains obligated to ensure the full delivery of aid," Kornelius added.
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Israel enforced a complete blockade on food and other supplies for two-and-a-half months beginning in March. Though the flow of aid resumed in May under mounting international outrage, the amount that Israel is letting into the besieged territory is a fraction of what aid organisations say is needed.
The United Nations has said that 6,000 trucks are awaiting permission from Israel to enter the occupied Palestinian territory.
Seven Palestinians died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said on Saturday.
They include a child, it said in a statement, bringing total deaths among children from causes related to malnutrition in Gaza to 93 since the war began. The ministry said 76 adults in Gaza have died of malnutrition-related causes since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults.
The German government, traditionally a strong supporter of Israel, also expressed"concern regarding reports that large quantities of humanitarian aid are being withheld by Hamas and criminal organisations".
Although Israel has alleged that much of the aid arriving in the territory is being siphoned off by Hamas, which runs Gaza, the UN has repeatedly rejected these claims.
An internal US government analysis seen by Reuters found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group of US-funded humanitarian supplies, and Israeli military officials have told the New York Times that they had no evidence to substantiate these allegations.
The Israeli army is accused of having equipped Palestinian criminal networks in its fight against Hamas and of allowing them to plunder aid deliveries. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly confirmed that Israel has armed and abetted local groups in Gaza to fight against Hamas.
"The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces," Jonathan Whittall of OCHA, the United Nations agency for co-ordinating humanitarian affairs, told reporters in May.
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A German government source told AFP it had noted that Israel has "considerably" increased the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza to about 220 a day.
Berlin has taken a tougher line against Israel's actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in recent weeks.
The source said that a German security cabinet meeting on Saturday discussed"the different options" for putting pressure on Israel, but no decision was taken.
A partial suspension of arms deliveries to Israel is one option that has been raised.
