A senior Hamas official urged Egyptian authorities on Sunday to act “decisively” to help reach the population of the Gaza Strip, which faces huge shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.

“Egypt must not remain a spectator, be limited to calls” for permission to be given in order “for aid to enter Gaza,” said Musa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Political Bureau of the Palestinian Islamist movement, in a statement.

“We expect Egypt to take a decisive position, which will allow aid to enter Gaza as soon as possible,” he insisted.

The small Palestinian enclave has been pounded by the Israeli military since October 7, after Hamas’s military arm launched an unprecedented attack on areas of Israeli territory that killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, says more than 8,000 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in the war.

Aid convoys can only enter the enclave through the border post in Rafah, Egypt.

As of yesterday, about 90 trucks had entered, passing through the specific crossing point under an agreement negotiated by the US and Egypt.

US President Joe Biden promised a significant increase in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave during a telephone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to his White House services.

The two leaders “committed to significantly accelerating and increasing aid flows to Gaza starting tomorrow and continuously thereafter,” the press release from the US presidency noted.

Egypt – the first Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in 1979 – is among the key intermediaries in efforts to secure the release of the more than 230 Hamas hostages held in the Gaza Strip.