U.S. envoy Witkoff's visit to Gaza criticized as a publicity stunt

NBC News

7 hours ago

Weeks of rising anger over Palestinians starving due to Israel 's offensive and aid restrictions had reached all the way to the White House, with President Donald Trump lamenting the sight of emaciated children on the brink of starvation.
On Friday, his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, entered Gaza in a rare visit by high-level U.S. officials to the besieged enclave.
Accompanied by the Israeli military, Witkoff visited an aid distribution site in southern Gaza run by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, where hundreds of Palestinians waited desperately behind barbed wire for food.
'Incredible feat!' Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, who accompanied Witkoff, said in a post on X on Friday, after touring GHF's operations and speaking to "folks on the ground."
Palestinians and others inside Gaza have criticized the visit as a public relations stunt for GHF, whose aid distribution process has been marked by chaos, looting and deadly shootings, often by Israeli soldiers, that have killed hundreds of hungry Palestinians seeking aid.
'It was a PR stunt, a controlled visit supervised and dictated by the Israeli military,' Ellie Burgos, an American critical care nurse volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told the NBC News crew. 'What they saw was not the reality.'
Burgos had earlier called for Witkoff to visit Gaza, urging him to witness the conditions on the ground for himself, but felt his limited tour did little to change the situation on the ground.
'Food is still incredibly difficult to find, people are still being shot at aid distribution sites, and violence continues,' she said.
On the day of the visit, at least 92 people were killed on Friday across Gaza, including 51 people who were seeking aid, Dr. Mohammed Saqr, Director of Nursing at Nasser Hospital, told NBC News.
Mohamed Saddak, 47, who was hoping to collect food for his family of nine, told a NBC News' crew on the ground that tanks had advanced toward him and others as they sought to receive our aid.
'They are constantly shooting at us,' he said, 'firing from tanks, and sometimes by drones.'
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News on the shootings at aid sites following Witkoff's visit.
Israeli officials continued to deny claims of widespread hunger inside Gaza, though in a sign of shifting discourse, top U.S. officials have begun to acknowledge the crisis.
'You've got little kids who are clearly starving to death,' Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Monday.
In a post on X, Witkoff said the visit's purpose was 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."
After Gaza, Witkoff on Saturday visited Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, where families of Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas were demanding that the Israeli government secure a deal to release the remaining hostages. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
According to a statement by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, Witkoff told them, 'We will get your children home and hold Hamas responsible for any bad acts on their part.' He added, 'We will do what's right for the Gazan people.'
The protests came after a video of an Israeli hostage in Gaza, Rom Braslavski, was released by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Thursday. A day later, Hamas released a video of another Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, showing him alive but frail. It is unclear when the videos were filmed.
'We cannot endure even one more minute without bringing him home,' Braslavski's cousin Adam Hajaj said in a statement. 'This video tore my family apart!'
Huckabee, meanwhile, hailed GHF's distribution of over a million meals a day, which at Gaza's population of roughly 2 million people, averages to half a meal per person per day.
GHF stepped in to distribute food in the weeks after Israel lifted its nearly three-month total blockade on all food and supplies entering the enclave. But the aid GHF distributed, alongside some limited quantities by other international organizations, fell far short of the needs of the population. On Sunday, Israel said it was expanding aid access into Gaza after outrage mounted over the widespread starvation and surging deaths from malnutrition.
GHF runs four aid sites in Gaza and even though it claims independence from any government, it runs the sites inside Israel's militarized zone with the backing of the Israeli military.
Witnesses and aid agencies have decried the aid delivery process, which, according to the U.N., has resulted in deaths of nearly 1,400 people while collecting aid, including 859 in the vicinity of the GHF sites.
The Israeli military and the GHF have acknowledged that some shots have been fired but said only as warnings.
'US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,' New York-based Human Rights Watch said Friday.
Burgos's colleague, Dr. Tom Adamekiewicz, urged the diplomats to see "what's happening to the children, the families, to these young boys and women and men that are being basically shot at like rabbits."