Israeli National Security Minister Ben Gvir is visiting the US and said on Wednesday that during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, he received support from Republican leadership for his plan to bomb food and aid warehouses in Gaza.
“I had the honor and privilege to meet with senior officials of the Republican Party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate,” Ben Gvir wrote on X.
“They expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid warehouses should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely,” the minister added.
Ben Gvir has been calling for Israel to bomb humanitarian aid that was allowed into Gaza during the short-lived ceasefire. “The government must also order the bombing of the aid stockpiles that have accumulated in Gaza in enormous quantities during and before the ceasefire,” he said in March after Israel imposed a total blockade on all goods entering Gaza.
The Trump administration has strongly backed Israel’s blockade on aid and the collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza, a clear war crime under international law.
In another post on Wednesday, Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, vowed that “not a single gram” of food will enter Gaza until Israeli hostages are released, although Israel has refused Hamas’s offer to free all the captives in exchange for a permanent ceasefire.
“I see the reports about the debate over who should deliver ‘humanitarian’ aid to Gaza: Well, this is a fundamentally foolish debate, because not a single gram of aid should enter the entire Strip as long as our hostages are held there—not by some external organization, nor by IDF soldiers,” Ben Gvir said.
“This is the situation today, and only by maintaining it will it be possible to bring Hamas to its knees and free our hostages by force,” he added.
Medical officials in Gaza have been warning about the impact the severe food shortages are having on children. Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, director of al-Tahrir Hospital at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza, said on Wednesday that children are suffering from malnutrition.
“Children in the Gaza Strip are in the most severe stages of malnutrition, and it is difficult to follow them up medically due to the shortage of therapeutic drugs and baby formula,” al-Farra said in a press release posted by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which included photos of an emaciated child.
Ben Gvir, one of the most extreme members of the Israeli government, is an outspoken proponent of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the establishment of Jewish settlements. He is due to visit Yale later on Wednesday amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on college protests that are critical of Israel.
