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United States President Donald Trump warned Monday that the people of Gaza are facing “real starvation”, as aid agencies sought to take advantage of an Israeli “tactical pause” of some military operations to rush in food aid.
Speaking in Scotland after meeting Britain’s leader, Trump contradicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had earlier dismissed fears of famine in Gaza as Hamas propaganda.
Trump said the United States and its partners would help set up food centres to feed the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza facing what UN aid agencies have warned is a deadly wave of starvation and malnutrition.
“We’re going to be getting some good strong food, we can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids — that’s real starvation stuff,” he told reporters at a news conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“We have to help on a humanitarian basis before we do anything. We have to get the kids fed,” Trump said.
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Trump’s remarks came after Netanyahu, during a reception on Sunday for Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain in Jerusalem, declared: “There is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza.”
The United States already backs food centres under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), but the group’s operations have come under repeated criticism, with the UN saying hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops while trying to access its sites.
The Foundation has also been accused by aid groups of facilitating Israel’s military goals.
Trump said the UK and European Union would back new food centres that would be easier to access — “where the people can walk in, and no boundaries”.
“It’s crazy what’s going on over there,” he added.
The war in Gaza has dragged on for almost 22 months, creating a dire humanitarian crisis exacerbated by an Israeli blockade on supplies imposed from March to late May.
The easing of the blockade coincided with the beginning of the GHF’s operations, which effectively sidelined Gaza’s traditionally UN-led aid distribution system, and which have been criticised as grossly inadequate.
In recent days, the UN and humanitarian agencies have begun delivering more truckloads of food after the Israeli military declared a daily “tactical pause” in the fighting and opened secure aid routes amid mounting international outrage over hunger in the territory.
Jamil Safadi said he had been getting up before dawn for two weeks to search for food, and Monday was his first success.
“For the first time, I received about five kilos of flour, which I shared with my neighbour,” said the 37-year-old, who shelters with his wife, six children and a sick father in a tent in Tel al-Hawa.
Other Gazans were less fortunate. Some complained aid trucks had been stolen or that guards had fired at them near US-backed distribution centres.
“I saw injured and dead people. People have no choice but to try daily to get flour. What entered from Egypt was very limited,” said 33-year-old Amir al-Rash.
Israel’s new tactical pauses apply only to certain areas, and Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 54 people killed in Israeli attacks on Monday.
The Israeli defence ministry’s civil affairs agency COGAT said the UN and aid organisations had been able to pick up 120 truckloads of aid on Sunday and distribute it inside Gaza, with more on the way on Monday.
