President Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people are starving” in the Gaza Strip under an Israeli blockade preventing aid deliveries, adding that the U.S. wanted to help alleviate the suffering.
“We’re going to handle a couple of situations that you have here,” Mr. Trump said, speaking in the United Arab Emirates on the last leg of his visit to three Persian Gulf nations this week. “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”
Aid groups have warned that the population of Gaza is on the brink of famine, and some Israeli military officials have begun to privately express concerns over the risk of starvation in the territory, 19 months after the war there began.
In addition to the total siege it has imposed on Gaza for more than two months, Israel has escalated its military campaign in recent days. Strikes on Friday killed more than 100 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, a day after Israeli bombardment forced the closure of one of the enclave’s major hospitals.
Mr. Trump later told reporters on Air Force One that the U.S. must take action on the Gaza crisis. He was en route home after the first major state visit of his second term, which took him to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month ,” Mr. Trump said. “We have to help also out the Palestinians,” he added, noting that the United States would look at both sides of the issue. “We’ll do a good job,” he said.
Gulf leaders pressed Mr. Trump on the plight of the Palestinians during his visit to the region. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, asked Mr. Trump to use American leverage to bring about peace in Gaza and end the killing.
Israel started its total blockade on March 2. For more than 70 days, it has barred the entry of food, water and other supplies while cases of malnutrition and disease are spiraling.
Israel says it is aiming to force Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that dominates Gaza, to accept new cease-fire conditions after a two-month truce fell apart. It also wants to secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war.
Israel has been threatening to escalate its military campaign in Gaza even further and recently stepped up the intensity of deadly military strikes.
The United Nations-backed body that monitors starvation conditions in the world warned this week that Gaza is at “critical risk of famine,” saying that 100 percent of the enclave’s two million residents face a malnutrition crisis.
The conditions in Gaza spurred the creation of an aid group with backing from the Trump administration, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The group says it aims to establish a new system for aid to flow into the territory in agreement with Israel.
The foundation said it would set up a number of distribution centers where Gazans could pick up food, hygiene kits and other humanitarian support. The plan has been met with widespread skepticism from established humanitarian groups and U.N. agencies, which argue that the system could force sick or older Gazans into long and dangerous treks for aid.
Vowing not to join the effort, the United Nations also warned that the foundation’s distribution system could become a means for forced displacement, as most centers were expected to be in the southern part of the enclave. More than 90 percent of Gazans have been displaced in the war, many of them multiple times.
Israel has declared about 70 percent of the enclave to be either “no go” zones or under evacuation orders.