US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said Gaza aid sites run by the American- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation plan to begin operating all day and night as the operation looks to “scale up.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Gaza humanitarian crisis shouldn’t distract from the plight of Israeli hostages held by terror groups there, or from the need to disband Hamas.
Both officials spoke to Fox News on Wednesday as the humanitarian situation in Gaza continued to stand at the forefront of international attention. The food situation has become a central concern amid the ongoing war triggered by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Humanitarian groups continue to sound the alarm over widespread hunger in Gaza and increasing reports of deaths due to malnutrition.
The Trump administration has recently indicated it wants to be more involved in the distribution of aid, reportedly due to disappointment with how things have been handled by the GHF so far.
“The immediate plan is to scale up the number of sites up to 16 and begin to operate them as much as 24 hours a day to get more food to more people more efficiently,” Huckabee said of the GHF centers.
GHF sites currently only operate a few hours each day. The issue of Palestinians attempting to reach sites before opening hours was apparently a factor in repeated deadly incidents in the first several weeks of the GHF’s rollout in which Israeli troops were accused of firing at aid seekers showing up at the wrong time.
Despite criticism of the GHF’s operations, Huckabee called the mission “phenomenal,” saying it has delivered 106 million meals thus far “into the hands of the people… who really do need food” while keeping it away from “looters and thieves.”
The ambassador earlier told Bloomberg News that there was a push to quickly add 12 aid sites to the four currently operated by the GHF, but noted that the plan depended on funding and IDF operations in northern Gaza. The GHF only operates in areas where troops have taken control, outside of Palestinian population centers.
The GHF has long spoken of expanding operations, but has seemingly struggled thus far to keep even the four existing sites open simultaneously.
Rubio, in his own interview with Fox, said the need to release the remaining hostages and dismantle Hamas should not be overshadowed by the broader humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“There’s a lot of attention being paid to the humanitarian [issue], and we want to do everything we can to be helpful on the humanitarian problem,” Rubio said. “But not enough attention [is] being paid to the fact that 20 people [who] had nothing to do with this are being held hostage in tunnels on the verge of death, and no real talk about how Hamas needs to be disarmed and disbanded.”
Though 50 hostages remain held in Gaza, only 20 of them are believed to still be alive.
Rubio said the three issues are interrelated and that the Trump administration is committed to addressing each of them.
“Ultimately, Hamas cannot continue to exist. Even the Arab League says it,” Rubio continued, referring to components of last month’s New York Declaration, which was part of France’s initiative tied to Paris’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state — which Rubio came out vehemently against.
“As long as Hamas exists as an armed group in Gaza, there will not be peace, there will not be a peaceful future — because it’s going to happen again. And this can never happen again,” Rubio said.
A European Union official told Reuters on Thursday that the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to be very severe, but the situation was trending in the right direction.
The official said there were some positive developments regarding fuel delivery, the reopening of some routes, and an upward trend in the number of daily trucks entering the enclave and the repair of some vital infrastructure.
However, the official added that “significant obstructive factors continue to undermine humanitarian operations and aid delivery to Gaza, notably the lack of a safe operating environment to allow the distribution of aid at scale.”
The comments come after the EU’s foreign policy and humanitarian arms updated member countries late on Wednesday on the status of an agreement reached with Israel last month on boosting humanitarian access to Gaza.
Huckabee’s remarks come as Israeli leaders were set to approve a controversial plan to bring vast new areas of northern and central Gaza under IDF control over several months, pushing hundreds of thousands more Palestinian civilians into displacement camps in the southern part of the Strip.
Expansion of GHF operations is reportedly an integral part of that plan.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, the expansion will be funded by approximately $1 billion in donations from the US and other countries.
Israel has reportedly already funneled millions of dollars to the GHF, though it has yet to publicly confirm doing so, as such funding would likely be unpopular among parts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing base that oppose allowing aid into Gaza, let alone paying for it.
Last week, Huckabee and US special envoy Steve Witkoff visited a GHF site in southern Gaza. Axios reported on Tuesday that the US wants to significantly increase its role in the distribution of aid, feeling Israel has bungled the issue to date, though the administration’s exact plan is still being crafted.
Images of starving Palestinians, including children, have alarmed the world in recent weeks, ramping up international pressure on Israel to enable more aid into the coastal enclave.
Israel says that Hamas steals supplies from deliveries by the UN and international aid groups. A BBC report on Wednesday backed up this assertion.
The GHF, established to provide aid via an alternative that would keep goods out of Hamas’s hands, has been plagued by near-daily shooting incidents that have seen hundreds killed as they try to reach the GHF distribution centers. There have also been deaths amid other aid deliveries carried out by the United Nations and other aid organizations, which refuse to cooperate with the GHF, citing humanitarian and ethical concerns with its methods. On Wednesday, 20 people were reportedly killed and dozens were injured when a food truck overturned.
The United Nations says more than 1,300 people have been killed trying to obtain aid supplies in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near the sites.
The IDF has acknowledged firing “warning shots” at crowds that get too close to its soldiers, but called the UN tallies exaggerated, though it hasn’t provided alternate numbers.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas led 5,600 terrorists to invade Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 as hostages to Gaza, where 50 remain, only 20 of them believed still alive.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.