ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow food and medicine into the devastated Gaza Strip.
No aid has been delivered to the Palestinian enclave since March 2. Israel has said it would not allow the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza until Palestinian militant group Hamas releases all remaining hostages.
Earlier on Friday, the U.N. World Food Programme said it had run out of food stocks in Gaza.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked whether concerns about humanitarian aid access came up in his phone call with Netanyahu earlier this week.
“Gaza came up and I said, ‘We’ve got to be good to Gaza … Those people are suffering,'” Trump said.
When asked whether he raised the issue of opening up access points for aid into Gaza, Trump replied “We are.”
“We’re going to take care of that. There’s a very big need for medicine, food and medicine, and we’re taking care of it,” he said.
Asked how Netanyahu responded, Trump said: “Felt well about it.”
The war in Gaza was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 51,300 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
“Hunger is spreading in Gaza, malnutrition is deepening in Gaza, injured people and other patients remain untreated in Gaza, and – as we have said before – people are dying,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Trevor Hunnicutt, Michelle Nichols and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by Franklin Paul, Aidan Lewis)
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