BEIRUT—Humanitarian relief convoys have departed to deliver aid to three besieged Syrian settlements for the second time this week, Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said on Thursday.

A convoy of 44 trucks from the U.N. World Food Program, International Committee for the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent has left the Syrian capital, Damascus, for the rebel-held town of Madaya, a former mountain resort near the Lebanon border, which has been besieged for months by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The trucks carried wheat, flour, cleaning materials and medical supplies.

A similar aid convoy of 17 trucks headed to the villages of Foua and Kefarya, in the northern province of Idlib, which have been besieged by rebels.

The Madaya convoy also included a nutritionist and health teams to assess the humanitarian situation, said Tarek Wheibi, spokesperson for the ICRC in Beirut.

Reports of starvation have drawn international attention to Madaya, where an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 people are thought to be trapped without food, electricity, and other basic supplies.