United States President Donald Trump has suggested that Israel will run food distribution centres in Gaza, a move that critics say would further entrench the Israeli occupation and endanger the safety of aid seekers.

Speaking to reporters onboard his presidential jet on Tuesday, Trump stressed the Israeli talking point that Hamas steals food assistance distributed in Gaza — a claim that has been denied by aid groups and United Nations officials.

Even Israeli officials have anonymously told news outlets like The New York Times that there is no evidence food is being diverted to Hamas. Still, Trump suggested otherwise.

“A lot of things have been stolen. They send money. They send food. And Hamas steals it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “So it’s a tricky little game.”

He added that he trusted Israel to handle the distribution of US aid, in spite of chaotic operations that have resulted in Israeli troops firing on hungry Palestinians.

“We’re going to be dealing with Israel. And we think they can do a good job of it,” Trump said. “They want to preside over the food centres to make sure the distribution is proper.”

It is not clear where and when the sites would be set up, and whether Israel would run them directly or through the GHF, a controversial US-backed aid foundation accused of unsafe practices.

Trump’s comments suggest that the US is not ready to support the resumption of aid distribution in Gaza through the UN and its partners on the ground.

Israel has tightened its blockade in Gaza since May, allowing food into the territory almost exclusively through GHF, which has four sites set up in the south of the enclave.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire while attempting to reach or leave GHF centres.

The siege has sparked an Israeli-imposed hunger crisis in the territory, and dozens of people have died of malnutrition.

Whistleblowers from the Israeli military and GHF have shared testimonies detailing the abuses committed at the foundation’s sites in recent weeks.

Anthony Aguilar, a US army veteran who worked with GHF, said that the group has failed to adequately deliver food in Gaza.

Nevertheless, he said, it has served as a vehicle for displacement, forcing Palestinians to the south of the territory.

“What I saw on numerous occasions are the Israeli [military] firing into the crowds of the Palestinians, firing over their head, firing at their feet … not just with rifles or machine guns, but tanks, tank rounds, artillery, mortars, missiles,” Aguilar told Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen in an interview posted on social media.

He stressed that the aid seekers were targeted “not because they were combatants or because they were hostile or because they were Hamas but simply as a means to control the crowd”.

As starvation worsens by the day in Gaza, the Netanyahu govt has been using food as a weapon of war — with complicity from Trump & U.S. taxpayer dollars. This is painful to listen to but here’s what a U.S. Army veteran & Green Beret who witnessed it first-hand recounted to me: pic.twitter.com/K6LNxN5P4Q — Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) July 29, 2025

Critics say that putting Israeli troops in charge of food distribution sites risks further atrocities against aid seekers.

Israel has maintained that there is no actual hunger in Gaza, dismissing the well-documented spread of starvation in the territory as Hamas propaganda.

On Monday, Trump acknowledged that there is “real starvation” in the territory, but he stopped short of criticising Israel.

Instead, on Tuesday, he stressed that Israel should be the side delivering the aid.

“I think Israel wants to do it, and they’ll be good at doing it,” Trump told reporters.

“If they do it — and if they really want to do it, and I think they do — they’ll do a good job. The food will be properly distributed.”

He also likened any pressure on Israel to a “reward” for Hamas.

“If you do that, you really are rewarding Hamas, and I’m not about to do that,” he told a reporter who asked about the possibility of the US pushing Israel towards a long-term solution to end the conflict.

Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on the basis of alleged war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war.

UN-backed food security experts announced on Tuesday that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza”.

On Saturday night, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted and boarded the Handala, an aid ship that attempted to reach Gaza as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a grassroots international collective that has worked to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza since 2010. According to the coalition, IDF soldiers beat and choked the American labor activist Chris Smalls, who was onboard the ship. Smalls is most well-known for co-founding the Amazon Labor Union.

The Handala, which carried food, baby formula, diapers and medicine, was attempting to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza, as Palestinians there continue to starve in what UN-backed hunger experts have called a “worst-case scenario of famine” that is unfolding.

“The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that upon arrival in Israeli custody, US human rights defender Chris Smalls was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals. They choked him and kicked him in the legs, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition wrote in a statement posted on Instagram on Tuesday morning.

“When his lawyer met with him, Chris was surrounded by six members of Israel’s special police unit. This level of force was not used against other abducted activists. We condemn this violence against Chris and demand accountability for the assault and discriminatory treatment he faced.”

Smalls, the only Black person onboard the boat, was one of 21 members of the group who were detained. Others included 19 civilians, including parliamentarians, medics and engineers, and two journalists. Jacob Berger, a Jewish American actor who shared on Instagram that Smalls was in “great spirits” after his detention – everyone else who was detained, he said, should be released on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The interception of the Handala came as more than 30 Israeli public figures called for “crippling sanctions” over Israel’s starvation of Gaza. Donald Trump said he wanted “to make sure [Gazans] get the food, every ounce of food” during a recent meeting with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer.

The Handala was not the first effort by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to deliver aid to Gaza. Previous attempts, including one in June in which Greta Thunberg was arrested, were also intercepted by Israel. In 2010, Israeli commandos killed 10 activists setting sail for Gaza on the Mavi Marmara.

“We are calling on others around the world, definitely our countries, to live up to their obligation of enforcing international law, of protecting human rights, but also other institutions that are founded to do the same,” said Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American attorney and Handala member, in an appearance on Monday on Democracy Now. “We should not be waiting for Israel to give permission for food or other humanitarian aid to enter … we need to be breaking, challenging and breaking the blockade.”

While they were onboard the flotilla, Araf said that the US government did not make contact with the seven American members of the crew, though France, Spain and Italy contacted their citizens to offer consular services after their detention. It is not yet clear if Smalls or any other American citizens have been contacted since their detention.

They were “legitimizing Israeli piracy on the high seas. And that is unacceptable to us,” she said, referring to countries that offered services following the illegal boarding in international waters.

“And that is the kind of impunity that our governments, all governments, really, have been allowing Israel to just violate international law.”

Two kids were killed and two more are in critical condition after a barge appears to have struck their boat and sent them overboard during a sailing camp in Miami on Monday, authorities said.

All six people on the sailing boat were pulled from the water by responders, and four kids were rushed to a nearby hospital where two were pronounced dead upon arrival, said petty officer 3rd Class Nicholas Strasburg, a spokesperson for the US Coast Guard.

The six – one adult and five kids – were in their last week of the sailing camp for kids from seven to 15 years old, according to the Miami Yacht Club.

“The entire MYC family is devastated by this terrible tragedy,” said Emily Copeland, the commodore of the yacht club, in a statement.

Two of the six who were rescued were in “good condition”, Strasburg said.

Last year, there were more than 550 deaths in recreational boating, of which 43 were caused by vessels crashing into each other, according to Coast Guard statistics.

The boats collided near Star Island, which runs between Miami Beach and Miami in Biscayne Bay, said Arielle Callender, a regional spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, in a statement.

Local television stations showed first responders, some in scuba diving gear, in boats around what appears to be a barge. The Coast Guard is investigating the crash.

Three people were killed – and their bodies have been recovered – after a small airplane crashed in the ocean off the central California coast, authorities and local media said.

Emergency crews responded late on Saturday after reports of a plane down about 300 yards (275 meters) off Point Pinos in Monterey county, the US Coast Guard said in a statement on Sunday.

The coast guard later told California’s KSBW news station that it recovered the bodies of three local residents who had been on the downed plane. They were identified as Steve Clatterbuck, 60, of Salinas; James Vincent, 36, of Monterey; and Jamie Tabscott, 44, of Monterey.

Witnesses reported hearing an aircraft engine revving and a splash in the water, KSBW reported. People on shore reported seeing debris wash up from the crashed plane.

Clatterbuck, Vincent and Tabscott were all on the twin-engine Beech 95-B55 Baron when it took off from the San Carlos airport at 10.11pm local time and was last seen at 10.37pm near Monterey, according to flight tracking data from FlightAware.com.

Coast guard boat and helicopter crews were launched to search for the crash victims, with assistance from local law enforcement and fire agencies.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Gaza is suffering man-made mass starvation caused by the blockade of aid into the territory, the head of the World Health Organization has said, as more than 100 agencies urged Israel to let supplies in to alleviate the crisis.

“I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s man-made, and that’s very clear,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference from Geneva. “This is because of [the] blockade.”

A letter signed by 109 agencies including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International and Amnesty International says the Israeli government is blocking humanitarian organisations from effectively distributing life-saving aid.

“Just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself – tonnes of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them,” the agencies wrote. “The government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death.”

The statement quoted an aid worker in Gaza who said: “Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.”

Increasing numbers of people in Gaza are dying from lack of food, the result of a starvation crisis that aid groups warned for months was imminent. At least 10 people have died from starvation in the last 24 hours, bringing the toll from hunger to 111, including 80 children, Gaza’s health authority said on Wednesday. Reports of people fainting from hunger on the long-walk towards the few aid distribution points and pictures of corpses with ribs jutting out have become commonplace.

View image in fullscreen Najah Barbakh with her 11-month-old malnourished daughter, Seela, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. Photograph: Ramadan Abed/Reuters

Daily aid distribution averages the equivalent of about 28 trucks of humanitarian goods. Before the war, about 500 trucks of aid were let into Gaza to feed its more than 2 million residents.

As starvation spreads, Israeli killings of civilians has increased. One person was killed by Israel every 12 minutes in July, making it one of the deadliest months of the Gaza war, an analysis of UN data revealed.

On Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least 21 people, more than half of them women and children, Palestinian health authorities said. The Israeli military said it was “deepening” activity in Gaza City and north Gaza.

Among the dead were two Palestinian journalists, Tamer al-Za’anin, and Walaa al-Jabari, who was pregnant, bringing the number of media workers killed in the territory to 229 since the start of the war.

Israel has extended the detention of Dr Marwan al-Hams, the acting director of Gaza’s field hospitals, until the end of the month, Associated Press reported. Hams was arrested earlier this week and has a gunshot wound to his leg, which he reportedly sustained during his detention.

Food in Gaza is now distributed by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose sites have been described by UN officials as “death traps”. Previous Guardian reporting described the dangers faced by Palestinians seeking food from GHF sites.

View image in fullscreen Palestinians rush towards aid trucks as they enter Gaza through the Zikim border crossing in the north of the territory. Photograph: APAImages/Shutterstock

The GHF claims it prevents the Palestinian group Hamas from stealing food via its distribution sites, a point echoed by Israel. Humanitarians have widely condemned the organisation for what they say is a violation of aid principles and potential complicity in the war crime of weaponising starvation.

UN officials report that the Israeli military has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites since the end of May.

Israel has killed at least 72 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israel also attacked World Health Organization facilities in Deir al-Balah, and cancelled the visa of the most senior UN aid official in Gaza.

As Israeli military activity in Gaza intensified, momentum for a ceasefire seemed to be growing. The US envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was heading to Rome on Wednesday, where he was expected to meet the top Israeli adviser, Ron Dermer, and Palestinian negotiators.

If progress is made on the deal, Witkoff will travel to Doha, where indirect negotiations have been taking place between the two parties.

Over the past week, gaps have been slowly bridged between Hamas and Israel on the ceasefire deal, though serious obstacles remain. An Israeli source said Israel was still awaiting a Hamas response, which was expected in the coming day.

On 21 July, 28 countries, including the UK and other Israeli allies, issued a statement calling for an end to the war in Gaza and labelling Israel’s “denial of essential humanitarian assistance” as “unacceptable”. The statement also spoke against Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, as well as Israeli plans to move Palestinians into a “humanitarian city”, which has been described by a former Israeli prime minister as a “concentration camp” and tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

The statement, while strongly worded, did not threaten sanctions or mention any concrete policy steps that would be taken against the Israeli government if it did not change course.

Wednesday’s letter from the humanitarian organisations calls for direct action. “Piecemeal arrangements and symbolic gestures, like airdrops or flawed aid deals, serve as a smokescreen for inaction. They cannot replace states’ legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale,” it says.

Israel’s military said that it “views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance”, and worked to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community.

It has denied accusations it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza and has accused Hamas of stealing food, an allegation that the militant group denies.

More than 59,000 people have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s military campaign there, which started after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed.