Trump comments on his envoy Witkoff’s visit to Gaza and confirms that his administration is seeking to provide food to Palestinians in the Strip
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he spoke with his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who had earlier visited an aid distribution site run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the Gaza Strip.
Trump explained, “I spoke with Steve Witkoff, and he had a great meeting with many people… The main meeting was about food, and he also had other conversations that I will tell you about later, but he had a meeting about getting food to people, and that is what we want”.
Accompanied by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Witkoff visited an aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, one of only three operational sites of its kind in the Strip.
Earlier on Friday, Witkoff said he visited the Gaza Strip to assess the facts on the ground regarding the humanitarian situation and to provide them to US President Donald Trump.
In his first statement after his visit to the Strip, Witkoff explained, “At the direction of President Donald Trump, Ambassador Mike Huckabee (the US ambassador to Israel) and I met with Israeli officials to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza”.
He added, “Today we spent more than five hours inside Gaza to establish the facts on the ground, assess conditions, and meet with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and other agencies”.
He explained that the purpose of the visit is to provide Trump with a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and to help formulate a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.
This visit comes after Witkoff arrived in Israel on Thursday and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid stalled ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.
The two sides agreed on the need to change the approach and framework of the negotiations due to Hamas’s unwillingness to reach a compromise, a senior Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post after the meeting.
