US envoy visits Gaza aid distribution site
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President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy visited a US-backed aid operation in Gaza on Friday, which the United Nations has partly blamed for deadly conditions in the enclave, saying he sought to get food and other aid to people there.
Steve Witkoff visited a site run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in Rafah. Humanitarian organisations and many foreign governments have been strongly critical of the GHF, which began operations in late May.
Hours after Witkoff's visit, Palestinian medics reported Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinians near one of the group's sites in the city on Gaza's southern edge. The Israeli military said it was still looking into the incident in which soldiers fired shots at as a "gathering of suspects" approaching its troops. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites. The UN has declined to work with the GHF, which it says distributes aid in ways that are inherently dangerous.
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US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who travelled with Witkoff to Gaza on Friday, posted on X a picture showing hungry Gazans behind razor wire with a GHF poster displaying a big American flag and the words "100,000,000 meals delivered".
"President Trump understands the stakes in Gaza and that feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority," GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay said.
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