Satellite images show building at sites in south Gaza after US says controversial Israeli aid plan to proceed.

President Trump said Thursday that the US should be allowed to take control of the Gaza Strip and transform the war-torn enclave into a “freedom zone.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced openness Thursday to any new ideas to bring aid into Gaza after a US- and Israeli-backed plan was sharply criticised, expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in the territory.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee outlined an American-Israeli plan to funnel humanitarian aid into parts of Gaza that he acknowledged will initially feed only about 60% of the population.

United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher on Tuesday criticized an Israel-initiated and U.S.-backed humanitarian aid distribution plan for Gaza as a "fig leaf for further violence and displacement" of Palestinians in the war-torn enclave.

A hospital in southern Gaza says 54 people have been killed in overnight airstrikes on the city of Khan Younis.

President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his desire to take over the Gaza Strip, telling a business roundtable in Qatar that the U.S. would "make it a freedom zone" and arguing there was nothing left to save in the Palestinian territory.

Palestinian rescuers reported more than 100 people killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes on blockaded Gaza, where a US-backed organisation said it intends to begin distributing aid by the end of the month.

A U.S.-backed mechanism for getting aid into Gaza should take effect soon, Washington's envoy to Israel said on Friday ahead of President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East, without detailing how this would work with no ceasefire in place.

The administration’s plan for Gaza food aid distribution remains in flux, as anticipated major funders and humanitarian groups decline to participate.

A US-backed organization set to take over aid delivery to starving civilians in Gaza said Wednesday that it expects to begin operations before the end of the month. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation seeks to create an alternative aid system, but other groups have raised doubts about the feasibility of its plan.