Trump Says ‘a Lot of People Are Starving’ in Gaza and the U.S. Wants to Help

Humanitarian support has collapsed in the enclave, which has been under total Israeli blockade for over two months. Aid groups say the territory is on the brink of famine.

President Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people are starving” in the Gaza Strip under an Israeli blockade preventing aid deliveries, adding that the U.S. wanted to help alleviate the suffering.

“We’re going to handle a couple of situations that you have here,” Mr. Trump said, speaking in the United Arab Emirates on the last leg of his visit to three Persian Gulf nations this week. “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”

Aid groups have warned for weeks that the population of Gaza is on the brink of famine, and some Israeli military officials have begun to privately express concerns over the risk of starvation in the territory, 19 months after the war there began.

On top of the siege it has imposed on Gaza for more than two months, Israel has escalated its military campaign in recent days. Strikes on Friday killed more than 100 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, a day after Israeli bombardment forced the closure of one of the enclave’s major hospitals. The Gaza authorities do not distinguish between civilians and militants when issuing death tolls.

Late Friday, the Israeli military said that its forces had begun mobilizing to seize positions in the Gaza Strip as part of “preparations to expand operations.” The military said that it had conducted extensive strikes in Gaza over the past day, but it was not immediately clear whether Israeli troops had advanced farther into the Palestinian enclave. Hamas had no immediate comment.

The Trump administration has remained largely silent on Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, but Gulf Arab leaders who met with Mr. Trump during his trip to the region this week seized on the opportunity to address that issue, among others. They scored a remarkable turnaround in U.S. policy when the president announced on the first day of the visit that he would lift sanctions on Syria.

Mr. Trump emerged from his trip to the Middle East with a more sympathetic tone on Gaza — a notable shift given his longstanding relationship with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Unlike his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose administration had criticized Israel’s conduct of the war and threatened to withhold some military aid, Mr. Trump has shown support for Israel’s campaign.

Boarding Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Trump told reporters that the United States must take action on the Gaza crisis. He was en route home after the first major state visit of his second term, which took him to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month,” Mr. Trump said. “We have to help also out the Palestinians,” he added, noting that the United States would look at both sides of the issue.

The comments are the latest in a series of words and actions by the president that have strained the relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Trump also recently announced a deal with the Houthis in Yemen, another avowed enemy of Israel, to end U.S. strikes on the militants in return for them agreeing not to attack U.S. shipping interests passing through the Red Sea. That deal included no guarantees for Israel, which continues to face Houthi strikes.

Israel, in turn, has continued to bomb Yemen. On Friday, Israel’s military said it struck two ports in Yemen, which it said were “used to transfer weapons and are a further example of the Houthi terrorist regime’s systematic and cynical exploitation of civilian infrastructure.”

The Houthi-controlled al-Masirah news channel said four people were killed in the strike.

Mr. Trump, who was greeted throughout his visit with lavish welcomes, enjoyed boisterous applause and even a standing ovation in his first speech in Riyadh, where he addressed a gathering of business leaders.

But one part of his speech met with stark silence: when he expressed a “fervent wish” that Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 deal in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Saudi officials say that recognizing Israel would hinge on the creation of a Palestinian state.

Gulf Arab leaders, aware of the symbolic potency to their own people of the Palestinian plight, sought to change Mr. Trump’s thinking on Gaza. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, asked Mr. Trump to use American leverage to bring about peace in Gaza and end the war, which has killed more than 50,000 people and reduced large parts of the enclave to rubble.

Israel started its blockade on March 2. For more than 70 days, it has barred the entry of food, water and other supplies. The United Nations-backed body that monitors starvation conditions in the world warned this week that Gaza is at “critical risk of famine,” saying that 100 percent of the enclave’s two million residents face a malnutrition crisis.

Israel says it is aiming to force Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that dominates Gaza, to accept new cease-fire conditions after a two-month truce fell apart. It also wants to secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war.

Israel has been threatening to escalate its military campaign in Gaza even further and recently stepped up the intensity of deadly military strikes.

The conditions in Gaza have spurred the creation of an aid group with backing from the Trump administration, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The new group appears to have come in response to a plan that Israeli and U.S. officials have been working on in recent weeks, which involves distribution zones for food that would have Israeli forces stationed outside their perimeters.

That resembles what the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation described as its plan for establishing a new system for aid to the territory, in agreement with Israel. The foundation said it would set up distribution centers where Gazans could get food, hygiene kits and other humanitarian support, though it did not mention Israeli forces.

The U.S.-Israeli plan has encountered skepticism from established humanitarian groups and U.N. agencies, which argue that the system could require sick or older Gazans to make long, dangerous treks for aid.

On Friday, Tom Fletcher, under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordination for the United Nations, said there was already a solid system in place.

“It is rooted in the nonnegotiable principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence,” he said. “It is backed by a coalition of donors and the vast majority of the international community. It is ready to be activated — today — if we are simply allowed to do our jobs.”

The United Nations also warned that the foundation’s distribution system could result in forced displacement, as most centers were expected to be in the southern part of the enclave. More than 90 percent of Gazans have been displaced in the war, many of them repeatedly.

Israel has declared about 70 percent of the enclave to be either “no go” zones or under evacuation orders.

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Farnaz Fassihi from New York.

Our Coverage of Tensions in the Middle East

•  West Bank Attack: An Israeli woman on the way to a hospital to give birth was shot and killed in the territory, in an attack that Hamas applauded as a “heroic act.”
•  Gazans Once Escaped to Rafah. Now Israel Is Razing It.: The Israeli military has destroyed extensive parts of the city since it ended a cease-fire after talks with Hamas collapsed.
•  Israeli Strike on Hamas Leader: The assassination of Muhammad Sinwar, the influential Hamas leader whom Israel tried to kill in an airstrike, would be a major tactical success for Israel but its long-term significance is unclear. Sinwar’s fate is unknown.
• Trump’s Middle East Visit: In Saudi Arabia, the president denounced Western intervention and nation-building, garnering both praise and eye rolls.
• Ban on Al Jazeera Lifted in West Bank: The Palestinian Authority offered scant information about why it issued the ban, which was first put into effect after accusing the outlet of “inciting sedition” and “interfering in internal Palestinian affairs.”
•  American Hostage Released: Edan Alexander, 21, who was believed to be the last living American citizen held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, was released by the militant group as part of a deal negotiated directly with the U.S.