Israel-Gaza updates: Harris to meet with Israeli war Cabinet member on Monday

The U.S. Central Command provided more details on the food aid delivered into Gaza Saturday in a combined effort with the Royal Jordanian Air Force.

The U.S. C-130s dropped over 38,000 meals along the coastline of Gaza, "allowing for civilian access to the critical aid,” according to a statement.

"The DoD humanitarian airdrops contributes to ongoing U.S. government efforts to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza," read the statement.

CENTCOM said this was the first aid drop into Gaza by the U.S. but plans are being made for potential "follow-on airborne aid delivery missions."

"These airdrops are part of a sustained effort to get more aid into Gaza, including by expanding the flow of aid through land corridors and routes," the statement said.

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty

The U.S. military has conducted food drops in Gaza authorized by President Joe Biden, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the operation.

The military is reported to have used three C-130 cargo planes from U.S. Air Forces Central Command to drop 66 parachute-strapped bundles containing about 38,000 meals over Gaza around 8 a.m. ET.

The air drop was expected to be the first of many the military planned to conduct. It came just days after many Palestinians were killed after trying to pull goods from an aid convoy.

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty

President Joe Biden on Friday said the U.S. would carry out airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the coming days.

"We need to do more, and the United States will do more,” Biden said. "In the coming days we’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others in providing airdrops of additional food and supplies."

He said the U.S. is also looking at the possibility of a marine corridor to deliver "large amounts of humanitarian assistance," in addition to expanding land deliveries.

"We're gonna insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need," Biden said.

"Innocent lives are on the line, and children's lives on the line," he said.

Biden called Thursday's killing of over 100 civilians waiting for aid "tragic and alarming," adding that the "loss of life is heartbreaking."

White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said the airdrops will not be a "one and done" operation and will be the start of a "sustained effort" over the coming weeks.

"With each one, I think we'll learn more and we'll get better at them," Kirby said.

Kirby explained that it will be "extremely difficult" to conduct airdrops in a densely populated environment like Gaza.

"The biggest risk is making sure that nobody gets hurt on the ground. And so, you got to locate out areas to drop that you know will be safe for people so that they don't become victims of the drop itself," he said.

Kirby also noted that the airdrops are "not a replacement for moving things in by ground."

-ABC News' Justin Gomez

The World Health Organization said Friday that at least 10 children are known to have starved to death in the Gaza Strip since the war between Hamas and Israel began on Oct. 7.

"So, the official records yesterday or this morning said there was a 10th child officially registered in a hospital as having starved to death. A very sad threshold, similarly sad as the 30,000 deaths we reached all over Gaza," WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said during a press briefing. "And similar like those, these are official records, and as you all point out exactly, the unofficial numbers can unfortunately be expected to be higher. And once we see them, once we see them registered in hospitals, once we see them registered officially, it's already further down the line."

Lindmeier said Gaza's health care system is now "more than on its knees," with Israel having cut off electricity and freshwater supply and limiting the entry of humanitarian aid into the Hamas-ruled enclave in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attack.

"All this leads to a desperate situation as we saw yesterday in the unfortunate, horrifying incidents, where hundreds of people got killed," he added. "While the U.N. secretary-general mentioned exactly that the investigation should show what the real causes were, that's not even right now important. The important [thing] is that people are so desperate for food, for freshwater, for any supplies that they risk their lives in getting any food, any supplies to support their children, to support themselves."

"This is the real drama, this is the real catastrophe here, that food and supplies are so scarce that we see these situations coming up," he continued. "And the food supplies have been cut off deliberately, let's not forget that."

Lindmeier warned that "once a famine is declared, it is too late for many people."

"We don't want to get to that situation and we need things to change before that,” he told reporters.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky and Morgan Winsor