Trump envoys praise ‘incredible’ aid efforts during Gaza visit after UN says nearly 1,400 Palestinians killed seeking food
Two top US officials visited aid distribution sites in Gaza on Friday, hailing the work of a controversial agency delivering food, after the UN said hundreds of Palestinians have died while seeking help.
Ambassador Mike Huckabee joined Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff for a visit to an aid site in Rafah run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which took control of aid distribution in May.
The pair are the first high-profile US officials to visit the enclave, which has been in the grip of a hunger crisis in recent weeks, since the war began. Mr Witkoff said the visit was part of a bid to put together a new US-backed aid plan for the war-shattered territory.
Mr Witkoff said the purpose of the visit was to give Mr Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza”.
“We received briefings from @IDF and spoke to folks on the ground,” Mr Huckabee said on X following the visit. “GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!” he added, echoing claims by the agency.
But experts say that controversial distribution methods have contributed to hundreds of Palestinian deaths since the GHF took control of aid in May.
At least 1,373 have been killed while seeking aid, including 859 near GHF sites, mostly by the Israeli military, the UN’s humanitarian agency (UNHCR) said on Thursday. Gaza’s health ministry said 91 had died in the past day alone.
The UN says GHF aid distribution methods are inherently dangerous and violate humanitarian neutrality principles. In a report issued Friday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said GHF was at the heart of a “flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.”
The GHF contends that nobody has been killed at its distribution points and says it does a better job of protecting aid deliveries from looting than the UN.
It has yet to respond to the Human Rights Watch report directly but in a statement on Friday marking the 100 million meals the GHF says it has delivered since May, it said: “GHF remains the only reliable food aid system in Gaza, delivering millions of meals each day to aid seekers.
“Meanwhile, new data shows nearly 90% of aid trucks for the UN and other humanitarian groups are being looted by military age men, with many civilians being injured and trampled.”
The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding.
Hours after the visit by Mr Witkoff and Mr Huckabee, Palestinian medics reported Israeli forces had shot dead three Gazans near a GHF site on the enclave’s southern edge. It is unclear whether these deaths were at the same location visited by US officials.
The Israeli military said it was still looking into the incident, in which soldiers had fired warning shots at what it described as a “gathering of suspects” approaching its troops, hundreds of meters from the aid site.
