President Trump says a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza could be just days away.

“We think within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire,” Mr. Trump said Friday at an Oval Office event celebrating a peace deal between Rwanda and Congo.

“We’re working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of,” the president said.

He said the United States has been supplying food and money to the area “because we have to.”

“We’re in theory not involved in it, but we’re involved because people are dying, and I look at those crowds of people that have no food, no anything, and we’re the ones that are getting it there,” he said.

A report from the World Health Organization last month said that the entire population of Gaza, 2.1 million, faces prolonged food shortages. Nearly half a million people are in a “catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death.”

During a World Health Organization media briefing on global health issues Friday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, said in the last two weeks, 500 Gazans have been killed trying to get food at non-United Nations militarized food distribution sites and routes.

“Meanwhile, hunger stalks everyone, making them weaker, sicker and more vulnerable. Since the start of this year, an average of 112 children have been admitted every day for treatment of acute malnutrition,” he said.

Israel had a ceasefire agreement with the terrorist group Hamas that controls Gaza, but it collapsed in March after Israel said Hamas refused to release more hostages.

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.