US envoy Witkoff visits the Gaza aid operation that the UN calls unsafe

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Charlotte Greenfield

CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy became the first high-profile U.S. official to visit Gaza since the war began, touring a U.S.-backed aid operation on Friday that the United Nations says is partly to blame for deadly conditions in the enclave.

Steve Witkoff visited a site run by the U.S. and Israel--backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in what he said was an effort to create a new aid plan for the war-shattered Palestinian territory, where Israel has been fighting the militant group Hamas.

Humanitarian organizations and many foreign governments have been strongly critical of the GHF, which began operations in late May. A global hunger monitor warned this week that famine is unfolding in Gaza.

Hours after Witkoff's visit, Palestinian medics reported Israeli forces had shot dead three Palestinians near one of the group's sites in the city on Gaza's southern edge. Reuters could not immediately verify whether it was the same location.

The Israeli military said it was still looking into the incident in which soldiers had fired warning shots at what it described as a "gathering of suspects" approaching its troops, hundreds of metres from the aid site.

The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating there, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.

The Israeli military has acknowledged that its forces have killed some Palestinians seeking aid and says it has given its troops new orders to improve their response.

The U.N. has declined to work with the GHF, which it says distributes aid in ways that are inherently dangerous and violate humanitarian neutrality principles, contributing to the hunger crisis across the territory.

The GHF says nobody has been killed at its distribution points, and that it is doing a better job of protecting aid deliveries than the U.N.

Israel blames Hamas and the U.N. for the failure of food to get to desperate Palestinians in Gaza and introduced the GHF distribution system saying it would prevent aid supplies being seized by Hamas. Hamas denies stealing aid.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who traveled with Witkoff to Gaza on Friday, posted on X a picture showing hungry Gazans behind razor wire with a GHF poster with a big American flag that read "100,000,000 meals delivered".

"President Trump understands the stakes in Gaza and that feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority," GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay said in a statement, accompanied by images of Witkoff in a grey camouflage top, flak jacket and "Make America Great Again" baseball cap with Trump's name stitched on the back.

"We were honoured to brief his delegation, share our operations, and demonstrate the impact of delivering 100 million meals to those who need them most," Fay said.

Witkoff said on X that he had also met with other agencies.

"The purpose of the visit was to give @POTUS (Trump) a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza," Witkoff said.

He visited Gaza a day after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is under mounting international pressure over the devastation of Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023 and growing starvation among its 2.2 million inhabitants.

MALNUTRITION

Gaza medics say dozens have died of malnutrition in recent days as hunger sets in, after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March-May.

Israel says it is taking steps to let in more aid, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.

The worsening humanitarian crisis has prompted France, Britain and Canada to announce plans to potentially recognise a Palestinian state, a move already taken by most countries but not by major Western powers.

The Israeli military's statistics show that an average of around 140 aid trucks have entered Gaza daily during the course of the war, about a quarter of what international humanitarian agencies say is required.

On Friday, the Israeli military said that 200 trucks of aid were distributed by the U.N. and other organizations on Thursday, with hundreds more waiting to be picked up from the border crossings inside Gaza.

The United Nations says it has thousands of trucks still waiting, if Israel would let them in without the stringent security measures that aid groups say have prevented the entry of much-needed humanitarian assistance throughout the war.

Israel has begun allowing food air drops this week, but U.N. agencies say these are a poor alternative to letting in more trucks. On Friday, the Israeli military said that 126 food packages were airdropped by six countries, including for the first time France, Spain, and Germany.

"If there is political will to allow airdrops - which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings," U.N. Palestinian aid agency chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

In addition to the three shot near a GHF site, medics said at least 12 other Palestinians were killed in air strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

The Gaza war, which began after Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them in Israeli airstrikes.

Ceasefire talks in Qatar ended last week in deadlock.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Charlotte Greenfield and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Olivia Le Poidevin and Ahmed ElimamEditing by Peter Graff, Mark Heinrich and Frances Kerry)