Witkoff US envoy taken to Gaza aid death trap

Donald Trump's envoy to the Middle East has visited Gaza and been shown one of the food distribution sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military.

- Peter Beaumont

Steve Witkoff had earlier met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, amid mounting international horror over conditions of starvation in Gaza occurring after months of Israeli-imposed aid restrictions.

Witkoff - a former real estate lawyer with no background in foreign policy or humanitarian aid - wrote on X that he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza in order to gain "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid".

Chapin Fay, a spokesperson for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), said the visit reflected Trump's understanding of the crisis and that "feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority".

The apparent absence of senior international aid officials during a visit accompanied by senior Israeli figures raises questions about the credibility of Israeli and US plans to increase aid flows.

Trump repeated his intention to increase the amount of aid reaching Gaza in a phone call with the US news site Axios, saying: "We want to help people. We want to help them live. We want to get people fed. It is something that should have happened long time ago."

It is unclear whether Trump will double down on an expansion of GFH's operations.