Deir al-Balah, 20 May

Israel showed no sign of responding to allies' calls to halt its new military offensive in Gaza as health officials said airstrikes killed at least 85 Palestinians overnight into Tuesday, but Israel said it was allowing in dozens more trucks of aid.

It was not immediately clear whether the desperately needed aid was reaching any of Gaza's over 2 million people, who had been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months. Experts have warned of famine.

Under pressure, Israel agreed this week to allow a “minimal” amount of aid into Gaza after preventing the entry of food, medicine and fuel in an attempt to pressure Hamas.

After the first five trucks entered on Monday, dozens began entering via the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday afternoon, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said. They included flour for bakeries, food for community soup kitchens, baby food and medical supplies.

Organisations in Gaza did not immediately confirm whether they had received anything. Marmorstein said Israel would allow dozens of aid trucks per day — far less than the 600 that entered daily during the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency, said the world body had received approvals for about 100 trucks to enter Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he decided to let in limited aid after pressure from allies, who told him they couldn't support Israel while devastating images of starvation were coming out of Gaza.

But some close allies say his decision is not enough.

The British government on Tuesday said it was suspending free trade negotiations with Israel and was levelling new sanctions targeting settlements in the occupied West Bank.

It came a day after the UK, France and Canada condemned Israel's handling of the war in Gaza and its actions in the West Bank and threatened to take action.

“I want to put on record today that we're horrified by the escalation from Israel,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the UK's Parliament.

Israel's Marmorstein called the new sanctions “unjustified and regrettable" and claimed Israel and the UK hadn't been talking about free trade.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot denounced the Israeli government's “blind violence” in Gaza that he said has turned the Palestinian territory into a “place of death”.

“This must stop,” Barrot told French radio France Inter on Tuesday.

Israeli politician criticises killing babies as a hobby

Criticism against Israel's conduct in Gaza also came at home. A leader of centre-left politics said Tuesday that Israel was becoming an “outcast among nations" because of the government's approach to the war.

“A sane country doesn't engage in fighting against civilians, doesn't kill babies as a hobby and doesn't set for itself the goals of expelling a population,” Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of the opposition Democrats party, told Reshet Bet radio.

His comments were rare criticism from inside Israel of its wartime conduct in Gaza. Many Israelis have criticised Netanyahu throughout the war, but that has been mostly limited to what opponents argue are his political motives to continue the war. Criticism over the war's toll on Palestinian civilians has been almost unheard.

Netanyahu swiftly slammed Golan's remarks, calling them “wild incitement” against Israeli soldiers and accusing him of echoing “disgraceful antisemitic blood libels” against the country.