Chicago – August 02, 2025
Steve Witkoff, the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East, on Friday visited a controversial US-backed aid distribution site in Gaza, one of three such locations near which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks trying to reach scarce food supplies.
Witkoff said he spent five hours in Gaza on Friday to better understand the humanitarian situation in the enclave and to relay it to Donald Trump. The US president said earlier this week that there was “real starvation” in Gaza, contradicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims.
“I spoke to Steve Witkoff. He had a great meeting with a lot of people, and the primary meeting was on food,” Trump said early Friday evening. “And he had, he also had some other conversations that I’ll tell you about later, but he had a meeting on getting the people fed, and that’s what we want.”
Along with US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Witkoff visited an aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – one of only three such operational sites in the blockaded enclave.
The GHF was created to sideline the United Nations’ role in distributing aid, after Israel complained that UN aid was reaching Hamas. But the new group has been criticized for failing to improve conditions as Gaza’s starvation crisis deepens.
The UN refused to participate in the new scheme, saying the GHF model violates basic humanitarian principles. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food, hundreds of them near GHF sites, according to the UN. The GHF disputes this.
For two months, the scenes at GHF distribution sites have been chaotic, with the Israeli military seen firing towards scores of Palestinians, some of whom have been crushed in the scramble to reach aid.
