US President Joe Biden announced on Friday plans to carry out a first military airdrop of food and supplies into Gaza, a day after the deaths of Palestinians queuing for aid threw a spotlight on an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the crowded coastal enclave.

Biden said the US airdrop would take place in the coming days but offered no further specifics. Other countries, including Jordan and France, have already carried out airdrops of aid into Gaza.

‘‘We need to do more and the United States will do more,’’ Biden told reporters, adding that ‘‘aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough’’.

At the White House, spokesperson John Kirby stressed that airdrops would become ‘‘a sustained effort’’. He added that the first airdrop would likely be military MREs, or ‘‘meals readyto-eat’’.

‘‘This isn’t going to be one and done,’’ Kirby said.

Biden told reporters the US was also looking at the possibility of a maritime corridor to deliver large amounts of aid into Gaza.

At least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip – one quarter of the enclave’s population – are one step away from famine, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces had killed more than 100 people trying to reach a relief convoy near Gaza City early on Thursday, as Palestinians face an increasingly desperate situation nearly five months into the war.

Israel blamed most of the deaths on crowds that swarmed around aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.

With people eating animal feed and even cactuses to survive, and with medics saying children are dying in hospitals from malnutrition and dehydration, the UN has said it faces ‘‘overwhelming obstacles’’ getting in aid.

David Deptula, a retired US Air Force three-star general who once commanded the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, said airdrops were something the US military can effectively execute.

‘‘It is something that’s right up their mission alley,’’ Deptula told Reuters.

Kirby noted that Israel had tried to airdrop supplies into Gaza and it was supportive of the US airdropping aid. ‘‘We are aware of the humanitarian airdrop,’’ said an Israeli official in Washington.