Israel says it will allow food into Gaza for the first time in months

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that Israel will allow “a basic quantity of food to be brought in" to avoid a starvation crisis, an outcome it said would risk endangering its military campaign to defeat the militant group Hamas. The decision passed without a vote in the security cabinet, according to an Israeli official.

Israel’s military began activating troops earlier Sunday in what it said was a major expansion of ground operations aimed at pushing Hamas to return remaining hostages and demilitarize. The move followed a wave of hundreds of airstrikes targeting Hamas infrastructure including weapons-storage facilities, underground sites and antitank missile launchers as well as militants, the military said.

“Just as we promised, we have begun a high-intensity campaign against Hamas," Netanyahu said in a video shared on social media.

Since the collapse of a fragile cease-fire in March, Israel has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Hamas with attacks on its military and political leadership as well infrastructure. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that a recent airstrike in southern Gaza had likely killed the group’s leader Mohammad Sinwar, who replaced his brother in the top role in Gaza after his death last year.

Effie Defrin, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the current escalation of ground operations in Gaza would continue until Hamas was defeated, adding that the military would bisect the Gaza Strip and move civilians to make way for the operations. Much of Gaza’s population has already been displaced multiple times throughout the 19-month war.

Palestinian health authorities said hundreds of people have been killed in strikes since Friday, and that more than 53,000 have been killed since the start of the war, though their figures don’t say how many were combatants.

Israel banned the entry of all aid and other goods into the Gaza Strip in early March, shortly before the collapse of the two-month cease-fire. The Israeli government has said Hamas steals aid and uses it to support its war effort, which the group denies. In its statement, Netanyahu’s office said it would take measures to prevent the aid from reaching Hamas.

The U.S. said earlier this month that it was working on a plan, supported by Israel, to resume aid from a number of distribution sites throughout Gaza. The plan has met criticism from the United Nations and other aid groups, which say it violates their principles and could put civilians at risk.

The current resumption of aid is meant to provide some relief while the new plan gets under way. Israel’s Army Radio reported that deliveries were expected to resume on Monday under U.N. oversight. A spokeswoman for the U.N.’s humanitarian office in Gaza said it had been approached by Israeli authorities about resuming aid but details were still being worked out.

Aid groups have warned for weeks that stockpiles brought in during the cease-fire were running dangerously low and severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and clean water were imminent.

A global hunger watchdog, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification partnership, warned last week that Gaza was at “critical risk" of famine, though it was unlikely to cross the threshold in the coming months. It said nearly half a million people in Gaza already face starvation, while the entire population of more than 2 million faces high levels of food insecurity.

Write to Feliz Solomon at feliz.solomon@wsj.com