JERUSALEM: President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy became the first high-profile United States official to visit Gaza since the war began, touring a US-backed aid operation on Friday (Aug 1) that the United Nations (UN) says is partly to blame for deadly conditions in the enclave.
Steve Witkoff visited a site run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in Rafah in what he said was a bid to put together a new aid plan for the war-shattered territory.
Hours after his visit, Palestinian medics reported Israeli forces had shot dead three Palestinians near one of the group’s sites in the city on Gaza’s southern edge. Reuters could not immediately verify whether it was the same location.
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.
The UN says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating there in May, 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 and violate humanitarian neutrality principles, contributing to the hunger crisis across the territory.
The GHF says nobody has been killed at its distribution points, and it is doing a better job of protecting aid deliveries than the UN.
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 with a big American flag that read “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 in a statement, accompanied by images of Witkoff in a grey camouflage top, flak jacket and “Make America Great Again” baseball cap with Trump’s name stitched on the back.
“We were honoured to brief his delegation, share our operations, and demonstrate the impact of delivering 100 million meals to those who need them most,” Fay said.
