Following days of global outrage at Israel’s restrictions on aid to Gaza, the Israeli military announced on Saturday night that it would revive the practice of dropping aid from airplanes, and make it easier for aid convoys to move through Gaza by land.

The announcement came amid a crisis of severe hunger in Gaza, where the number of wartime deaths caused by starvation has nearly doubled in the past month, to 127.

Hunger has spiraled since Israel blocked all food deliveries between March and May. It then put in place a new and contentious aid system that required many civilians to walk for miles, through Israeli military lines, to reach a handful of food distribution points run by private contractors.

According to Gazan health officials, hundreds of people have been killed by gunfire on their way to get food under the new system, in many cases by Israeli soldiers who opened fire on hungry crowds. Israeli officials have said they fired shots in the air in some instances because the crowds came too close or endangered their forces.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman, said in a phone interview that the changes announced on Saturday night were meant to make it easier to bring aid closer to where civilians live. He said that the Israeli Air Force had already begun to drop aid packages over northern Gaza, and that foreign air forces would continue the practice on Sunday.

The military’s announcement came a day after Israeli officials agreed to allow other countries, including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, to parachute aid into Gaza.