US President Donald Trump weighed in on Sunday on the humanitarian crisis and reports of starvation-related deaths in the Gaza Strip as Israel took steps to increase the flow of aid into the enclave, even while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied Jerusalem had any part in widespread shortages there.
At the same time, Trump and other leaders acknowledged that they did not know what lay in store for the devastated Palestinian enclave, after the apparent collapse of ceasefire and hostage deal negotiations on Friday, when Israel and the US pulled their negotiating teams from Doha, and accused Hamas of not being serious about wanting a truce deal.
Trump, who is on a four-day visit to Scotland, was asked by a reporter on Sunday about the images that have been coming out of Gaza of starving children, which he said he thought were “terrible.”
But he promptly pivoted to say, “They’re stealing the food,” without specifying who he was talking about, although he was likely alluding to the Hamas terror group, which Israel has regularly accused of stealing aid for its own benefit.
The US president lamented that the US had supposedly donated $60 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation while “no other country gave anything.”
“It makes you feel a little bad when you do that and, you know, you have other countries not giving anything,” he said, sitting alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Nobody gave but us. And nobody said, Gee, thank you very much. And it would be nice to have at least a thank you.”
“We’re giving a lot of money, a lot of food, a lot of everything,” he said. “If we weren’t there, I think people would have starved, frankly. They would have starved, and it’s not like they’re eating well.”
The actual figure given to the controversial GHF by the US is $30 million, and the US is also far from the only country to donate humanitarian aid. It is not even the largest donor, as the United Arab Emirates has given a larger percentage of assistance.
Amid the slew of changes that he approved to the aid system in Gaza on Saturday night amid widespread criticism over the reports of starvation-related deaths, Netanyahu, like Trump, insisted that if not for him, Gazans would have starved long ago.
Speaking at a Christian conference in Jerusalem hosted by Trump adviser and prominent Evangelical pastor Paula White, Netanyahu told a listening audience that “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.”
He claimed that Israel had “enabled the amount required by international law” to enter the Strip, which he said equated to some 1.9 million tons of aid since the start of the war in October 2023.
Israel “enabled humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war…Otherwise, there would be no Gazans,” he asserted, blaming Hamas for intercepting supplies and then “accusing Israel of not supplying it.”
In an effort to explain away the sudden changes to Israel’s aid policies, Netanyahu said the decision to implement 10-hour humanitarian pauses in densely populated parts of the Strip came after some “well-intended” agencies, as well as the United Nations, made “excuses” not to deliver aid behind combat zones, despite there having been “safe corridors.”
“So we’ve just announced that formally,” he said, claiming that there have always been safe routes for UN convoys to travel on.
“Here are safe corridors, and the UN has no excuses left. No excuses left. Stop lying… Stop accusing Israel deliberately of this egregious falsehood,” he said.
During the same conference, Netanyahu thanked evangelical zionists for standing with Israel against what he said were false allegations surrounding the war in Gaza.
“We have an eighth front — the battle for truth. And I can think of no one who can carry this battle alongside with us… better than [our] many Christian friends.”
He warned that the Israeli-Christian alliance was “being challenged today by… Islamist fundamentalism that seeks to subjugate all Muslims they view as infidels, eradicate the American — and obviously the Israeli — presence in the Middle East.”
Earlier on Sunday, the premier had similarly dismissed the UN’s claims about Gaza aid deliveries during a visit to the Ramon Air Force Base in the Negev Desert.
In what appeared to be an appeal to his far-right coalition allies and supporters, who believe that allowing aid to enter the Strip hinders Israel’s progress, Netanyahu pledged that even while Israel would “continue to fight, we will continue to act until we achieve all of our war goals — until complete victory,” it would have to continue allowing supplies into Gaza no matter where the war goes from here.
“We will eliminate Hamas,” the premier said, adding that Israel is “making progress in fighting and negotiating.”
But “in any path we choose, we will have to continue to allow the entry of minimal humanitarian supplies,” he continued, claiming that “we have done this until now.”
Contrary to Netanyahu’s claim, however, Israel has not always allowed supplies, minimal or otherwise, to enter the war-torn Gaza Strip, as it implemented a total blockade on the territory and barred all aid from entering between March and May of this year.
Even once aid resumed, it was in a markedly decreased manner, with much of it being disturbed by the controversial US- and Israel-backed GHF, in a manner that has drawn international backlash over reports of hundreds of aid-seekers being shot dead in near-daily incidents.
Only last week, amid accusations that Israel was starving Gazans, did Netanyahu drastically increase the amount and channels of aid entering Gaza.
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin similarly insisted that Israel had not subjugated the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip to starvation, and maintained that Israel cares more about Gazan civilians than Hamas does.
“We are continuing to lead a process of bringing humanitarian aid, while continuing the fighting. Israel is the one that initiated the [GHF] aid distribution sites… This is to prevent famine in Gaza,” Defrin said in a press conference, listing the ways in which Israel was allowing aid to enter and be transported across the Strip.
Defrin repeated the claim that Hamas is stealing aid from civilians, hiding it in tunnels, and at the same time carrying out a “false campaign on starvation in the Gaza Strip.”
“The photos emerging from Gaza are difficult, and they are part of this false campaign,” he said, reiterating that there is “no starvation in the Gaza Strip,” and that Israel was “operating according to international law.”
“We care about the nutrition of the residents of Gaza more than Hamas does,” he declared. “Hamas works intentionally to worsen the condition of the population. Hamas tries with all its might to sabotage the [GHF] aid distribution sites and the arrival of the aid to the Strip.”
While speaking to reporters in Scotland on Sunday, Trump turned to the decision to pull negotiators from Qatar amid anger at Hamas’s response to the ceasefire and hostage deal proposal that had been offered to it.
He acknowledged that “Israel will have to make a decision” regarding the war against Hamas and the remaining 50 hostages still held by Gaza’s terror groups.
“I know what I would do, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to say it,” Trump said.
He claimed that he predicted the breakdown in talks, asserting Hamas would not want to release the final hostages because it would lose its last bargaining chip.
Taking a more blunt approach than Trump on Sunday was leading Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who suggested in an interview with NBC News that Israel would not be able to negotiate a satisfactory end to the war in Gaza, and would have no choice but to take over control of the Strip.
Graham is a longtime supporter of Israel who frequently visits the country and is a friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I think President Trump has come to believe, and I certainly have come to believe, there’s no way you’re going to negotiate an end of this war with Hamas,” said the South Carolina senator, insinuating that the president had soured on the prospect of a deal.
“They’re going to do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin, take the place by force and start over again, presenting a better future for the Palestinians, hopefully having the Arabs take over the West Bank and Gaza,” he said, referring to the US-led allied occupation of the Japanese and German capitals after World War Two.
Even as Israel weighs its next steps in the Gaza Strip, pressure has been growing among its European allies to follow France’s lead and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian State.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced last Thursday that his country would formally recognize a Palestinian state during a UN meeting in September.
The decision made Paris the most powerful European nation to advance such a move, after Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia all announced their recognition in the months following the outbreak of the Gaza war.
Among those under pressure to follow Macron’s lead was British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was planning to recall his cabinet from their summer break to discuss the situation in Gaza, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
Starmer’s office did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
The UK parliament and cabinet are currently in a summer recess until September 1.
The recall, planned for next week, was reportedly decided on after Starmer said Friday the British government would recognize a Palestinian state only as part of a negotiated peace deal, disappointing many in his Labour Party who want him to follow France in taking swifter action.
More than 220 members of parliament in the UK, representing about a third of the House of Commons and mostly Labour members, wrote to Starmer on Friday, urging him to reconsider the issue.
Separately, a spokesperson for Downing Street said on Sunday that Starmer would discuss the stalled ceasefire negotiations in a meeting with Trump in Scotland on Monday.
Starmer is expected to “welcome the president’s administration working with partners in Qatar and Egypt to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza,” the spokesperson said.
“He will discuss further with him what more can be done to secure the ceasefire urgently, bring an end to the unspeakable suffering and starvation in Gaza and free the hostages who have been held so cruelly for so long,” they added.
Also under the spotlight is German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, after Berlin declined to join its European allies earlier this month in signing a letter condemning Israel’s restrictions on Gaza aid.
Merz said Sunday that he had spoken to Netanyahu by phone, and had urged him to do “everything in his power to bring about an immediate ceasefire… and allow urgently needed humanitarian aid to reach the starving civilian population in Gaza without delay.”
“We will closely monitor developments and, in coordination with France, the UK, other European partners, the United States, and Arab states, decide in the coming days how we can contribute to improving the situation,” he said.