Humanitarian aid to Gaza must only go to civilians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said in a joint statement following their meeting on Thursday.

“It was agreed that every effort must be made to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the most vulnerable people where they are, and that humanitarian aid is provided exclusively to civilians,” they stated.

The statement comes as Israel and U.N. agencies have been at odds over humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, where there have been widespread reports of food shortages. Israel has pointed to looting and hoarding of food by Hamas as a major source of the problem, and has supported the efforts of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation since May to distribute food without the terrorist group interdicting it. 

U.N. aid agencies, like the WFP, have refused to accept Israeli security for their food deliveries or to work with the GHF or any other alternatives to UNRWA, the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians, which Israel has outlawed. Some UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel and were Hamas fighters, and Hamas has used UNRWA facilities and resources in the war.

The joint statement from Netanyahu and McCain said that they “discussed the importance of protecting civilians from hunger and malnutrition and ensuring that their basic essential needs are met.”

“They noted the increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza over the last month and agreed to redouble efforts to expedite and sustain the entry of humanitarian goods into Gaza given the dire needs on the ground,” the statement reads.

McCain warned in an earlier post on X that “Gaza is at a breaking point.”

She recorded a video from the city of Deir el Balah in central Gaza, where she said that “famine is expected in the coming weeks if food doesn’t reach the thousands of starving families here fast enough.” 

“The desperation here is overwhelming. We can reach them. We need safe routes and sustained access. We must deliver at the scale this crisis demands,” McCain stated.

McCain met with IDF Chief of Staff (Lt.-Gen.) Eyal Zamir and Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian, the head of COGAT, the IDF unit responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid, on Wednesday, who “emphasized the IDF’s commitment to preventing famine and doing everything in its power to continue enabling humanitarian aid to reach the civilian population directly, rather than Hamas,” the IDF stated.

She also met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in Ramallah.