President Trump acknowledged on Monday that there was “real starvation” in the Gaza Strip, comments that came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed there was “no starvation” despite the daily malnutrition deaths that have been caused by the US-backed Israeli siege.
“That’s real starvation stuff, I see it. You can’t fake that,” the president told reporters while meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a Trump golf course in Scotland.
Trump said the US would become “even more involved” with getting aid into Gaza. However, the current US aid system, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has created death traps for Palestinians as they are regularly gunned down by the Israeli military near GHF sites.
Earlier in the day, Trump was asked if he agreed with Netanyahu’s claim that there was no starvation in Gaza, and replied, “Based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.” In other comments, Trump said Israel has “a lot of responsibility” for the starvation and must work to get more food into Gaza.
The UN and other aid groups that operate in Gaza have been calling for Israel to lift all restrictions on aid deliveries and for a ceasefire, which is required to provide a full humanitarian relief effort for Gaza’s starving population. But both the US and Israel recently quit ceasefire talks with Hamas, and Trump appears to be suggesting that Israel should escalate military operations.
“Hamas doesn’t want to give the hostages. I told Bibi that he will have to now maybe do it in a different way,” Trump said on Monday, adding that a ceasefire is “possible” but “you have to end it.”
While Trump claims Hamas doesn’t want to release the remaining Israeli captives, the group’s long-standing offer is that it would release all of them in exchange for a permanent ceasefire. But Netanyahu doesn’t want to end the genocidal war, and there’s no sign that Trump is willing to pressure him to do so by leveraging US military aid, which Israel relies on to sustain its operations in Gaza.
