Trump says US envoy’s Gaza trip focused on ‘getting the people fed’
Speaking to reporters about the purpose of the trip, Trump said Witkoff “had a great meeting with a lot of people, and the primary meeting was on food”.
“He also had some other conversations that I’ll tell you about later, but he had a meeting on getting people fed, and that’s what we want,” Trump added.
The visit took place amid increasing criticism over US-Israeli coordination in Gaza, including the GHF’s controversial distribution model, which Palestinians say serves as a tool for displacement under the guise of humanitarian relief, as well as a “death trap” for aid seekers, with more than 1,300 killed since late May while waiting for limited food supplies.
‘A daily battle for survival’
We’ve spoken to Ahmed al-Najjar, a resident and journalist living in Gaza, about the experience of Palestinians trying to get desperately needed food while being attacked from all sides.
Here’s what he said:
“It’s a very familiar [situation] now for anyone living across the Gaza Strip. “It wouldn’t be fair to describe our getting of food right now as actually getting food – it’s a daily battle for survival, it’s a daily battle to find something to eat, especially [after] months now of continued blockade.
“We are no longer in a situation where it’s easy for us to find something as simple as vegetables, something as simple as cheese or dairy products.
“Our own bodies are being slowly now consumed by this starvation that has been going on for months, now in a pace that we never imagined possible, in a pace that we now resort to … finding anything within the nearby markets, the nearby vendors to just fill in the hollow in our stomachs, resorting to things that we never imagined possible before.”
Two more killed, 26 wounded near aid site in central Gaza
Sources at al-Awda Hospital have said that two Palestinians have been killed and 26 were wounded by Israeli army fire while waiting for aid near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.
Palestinians grasping for survival, not safety
It is still very, very difficult for the majority of people to get food supplies. Hunger and desperation are leading to most of the violence and chaos we witness every day.
When aid trucks do manage to get into Gaza, they are instructed to stop at certain points, but they are often swarmed by hungry crowds.
It’s easy to point at Palestinians and call them violent when we see these crowds. But that’s desperation, that’s hunger – all the byproducts of months of devastation that pushed them to the point where survival is the ultimate goal.
It’s not safety any more, it’s survival. And that’s why we’re seeing this.
Just 73 aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday, most of them looted
Gaza’s Government Media office says only 73 aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday, far below the 500 to 600 the UN estimates are needed to meet residents’ daily needs.
In addition, most of the trucks were looted before their contents could be distributed, the office added, blaming Israel for “systematically and deliberately” enforcing the “security chaos”.
“We strongly condemn the continued crime of starvation, the closure of the crossings, and the prevention of humanitarian aid from entering,” the office said in a statement.
