US envoy promises Gaza food plan after deadly aid queues

New Straits Times

4 days ago

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: President Donald Trump's special envoy promised a plan to deliver more food to Gaza after inspecting a US-backed distribution centre on Friday, as the United Nations said Israeli forces had killed hundreds of hungry Palestinians waiting for aid over the past two months.
The visit by US envoy Steve Witkoff came as a report from global advocacy group Human Rights Watch accused Israeli forces of presiding over "regular bloodbaths" close to aid points run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories said at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza had been killed since May 27 – 105 of them in the last two days of July.
"Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military," the UN office said, breaking down the death toll into 859 killed near GHF sites and 514 along routes used by UN and aid agency convoys.
Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza, in an online post accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a GHF distribution centre.
The visit intended to give Trump "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza," Witkoff said.
Trump echoed this in a phone call with US news site Axios touting a plan to "get people fed."
"We want to help people. We want to help them live. We want to get people fed. It is something that should have happened long time ago," Trump said according to Axios.
The US president did not say whether his plan would involve reinforcing GHF or a whole new mechanism, the report said.
The GHF largely sidelined the longstanding UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza just as Israel in late May began easing a more than two-month aid blockade that exacerbated existing shortages.
The foundation said it had delivered its 100-millionth meal in Gaza during the visit by Witkoff and US ambassador Mike Huckabee.
Gaza's civil defence agency said 22 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid.
In its report on the GHF centres, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli military of using starvation as a weapon of war.
"Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families," said HRW's associate crisis and conflict director, Belkis Wille.
"US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths."
The Israeli military said in response that the GHF worked independently, but that troops operated near aid sites "to enable the orderly delivery of food" while trying to "minimise... any friction between the civilian population" and its forces.
The military accused Hamas of trying to prevent food distribution, and said it was conducting a review of reported deaths.
Witkoff on Thursday held talks with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to destroy Hamas and rescue hostages seized in the Palestinian group's October 2023 attack that triggered the war.
But Netanyahu is under mounting international pressure to end the bloodshed that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry, and threatened many more with famine.
Following his discussions with Witkoff, Netanyahu met Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who warned that "the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination."
Wadephul urged Israel "to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality."
In an investigative report published on Friday, British public broadcaster the BBC said it had gathered accounts from witnesses, medics and other sources of more than 160 children shot in the war, including 95 hit in the head or chest, some by Israeli forces.
Responding in a statement to AFP, the Israeli military said any "intentional harm to civilians, and especially to children, is strictly prohibited" by international law and the army's orders.
Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures.
The retaliatory Israeli offensive has killed at least 60,249 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence and other parties.
Of the 251 people taken hostage during the Hamas attack on southern Israel, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli military.
After Witkoff's Gaza visit, the armed wing of Hamas released a short online video showing 24-year-old Israeli hostage Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak in a narrow concrete tunnel.--AFP