US President Donald Trump yesterday said many people were starving in Gaza and suggested Israel could do more on humanitarian access, as Palestinians struggled to feed their children a day after Israel declared steps to improve supplies.
Describing starvation in Gaza as real, Trump’s assessment put him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Sunday “there is no starvation in Gaza” and vowed to fight on against the Palestinian fighter group Hamas – a statement he reposted on X yesterday.
Trump, speaking during a visit to Scotland, said Israel has a lot of responsibility for aid flows, and that a lot of people could be saved. “You have a lot of starving people,” he said.
“We’re going to set up food centres,” with no fences or boundaries to ease access, Trump said. The US would work with other countries to provide more humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, including food and sanitation, he said.
A White House spokesperson said additional details on the food centres would be “forthcoming.”
The Gaza health ministry yesterday said at least 14 people had died in the past 24 hours of starvation and malnutrition, bringing the war’s death toll from hunger to 147, including 88 children, most in just the last few weeks.
Israel announced several measures over the weekend, including daily humanitarian pauses to fighting in three areas of Gaza, new safe corridors for aid convoys, and airdrops. The decision followed the collapse of ceasefire talks on Friday.
Wessal Nabil from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza described the struggle of trying to feed her three children. “When you go to bed hungry, you wake up hungry. We distract them with anything ... to make them calm down,” she told Reuters.
“I call on the world, on those with merciful hearts, the compassionate, to look at us with compassion, to be kind to us, to stand with us until aid comes in and ensure it reaches us.”
Two Israeli defence officials said the international pressure prompted the new Israeli measures, as did the worsening conditions on the ground.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters the situation is catastrophic.
“At this time, children are dying every single day from starvation, from preventable disease. So time has run out.”
Trump yesterday said the Hamas fighter group had become difficult to deal with in recent days, but he was talking with Netanyahu about “various plans” to free hostages still held in the enclave.
- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Hamas can play no part in any future government of a Palestinian state, as he discussed the need for a ceasefire in Gaza with Trump during a meeting at the US president’s Scottish golf resort yesterday.
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