US President Donald Trump has said for the first time that “starvation” is afflicting people in Gaza and has pledged to get more food into the Palestinian territory, saying he is working on “various plans” with the Israeli government.
Speaking with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as they held talks in Scotland on Monday, Trump said the images he had seen of malnourished children were real, despite claims from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there was no starvation in the territory.
“That’s real starvation stuff,” Trump said. “I see it, you can’t fake that.”
“Those children look very hungry,” he added, describing what he’d seen on television. “We have to get the kids fed.”
The comments will increase pressure on Israel to expedite deliveries of aid into Gaza, as the UN and other bodies warn of the acute risk of famine, particularly among children.
Gaza’s health ministry has reported more than 80 “famine and malnutrition-related deaths” in the enclave in July, including 14 on Monday.
Starmer described the situation as “an absolute catastrophe” and said “people in Britain are revolted . . . at what they are seeing on their screens. So we have got to get to that ceasefire.”
Israel, which launched its war in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, eased some restrictions on aid deliveries into the territory on Sunday as international pressure mounted, but has said fears of famine are “Hamas propaganda”.
Taking questions at Turnberry in Ayrshire, one of Trump’s Scottish golf resorts, the US president spoke primarily of short-term plans to get more food aid delivered to Gaza and was vague on the details.
Downing Street had earlier said Starmer would present a “UK plan” for a “sustainable peace” in the Middle East to Trump after discussing the proposal with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron at the weekend.
In a readout of the bilateral meeting, Downing Street said Starmer and Trump had agreed “to work together to bring an end to the misery and starvation” and that the prime minister had “shared the plans he is working on with other European leaders to bring about a lasting peace”.
Merz said on Monday that Israel “must also do its part” to achieve a ceasefire and improve the dire situation, underlining how, despite being a staunch supporter of Israel, Berlin has also adopted a more critical stance towards Netanyahu’s government.
But the European plans appeared to have gained minimal traction with Trump, who was non-committal on what might happen over the next few days.
The US president said Washington would help “set up food centres where people can walk in with no boundaries”, in an apparent criticism of the violent, chaotic rollout of the US-funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Israel has tried to use the GHF to replace the UN as the main aid provider in Gaza but has faced fierce criticism following the repeated killing of Palestinians trying to reach its distribution sites.
Local officials say more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in recent months, many in attacks by Israeli troops while trying to reach GHF sites.
Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, said on Monday the additional aid was “a drop in the ocean of what’s needed”. He said the UN had got fewer than 100 trucks in on Sunday, compared with as many as 700 during a ceasefire earlier this year.
Aid officials said almost none of the humanitarian supplies taken into Gaza on Sunday made it to UN warehouses, with starving Palestinians seizing supplies before the vehicles reached their destinations.
“We need to deliver at a much, much greater scale,” Fletcher told the BBC.
UN officials said details of Israel’s new proposals to facilitate the entry of more aid, which included “humanitarian corridors” and limited daily “tactical pauses” to military activity in certain areas, remained unclear.
Fletcher said he understood the measures would be in place for “a week or so, which is clearly insufficient”.
Trump said a ceasefire was still “possible” but repeated some of his comments from last week about Hamas being unwilling to negotiate now that so few of the hostages taken from Israel on October 7 remain in the strip.
He said he told Netanyahu that he would “have to now maybe do it a different way”.
Starmer spoke of “a sense of revulsion in the British public” over the situation, which meant “putting pressure on Israel as this is a humanitarian catastrophe now”.
Starmer is under huge pressure over Gaza after Macron said last week that France would recognise a Palestinian state.
Number 10 has emphasised that Starmer backs recognising statehood but has said it must be at the right time as part of delivering “a sustainable peace”.
Starmer is due to host an emergency cabinet meeting on the crisis later this week.
Separately, the European Commission proposed on Monday to partially suspend Israel’s participation in the EU’s science programme, Horizon Europe, in reaction to the situation in Gaza.
The commission said this would address the participation of Israeli companies working on projects “that have potential dual-use applications”.
The partial suspension still needs to be approved by a weighted majority of EU member states.
In a statement released late on Monday, Netanyahu’s office said: “Israel will continue to work with international agencies as well as the US and European nations to ensure that large amounts of humanitarian aid flows into the Gaza Strip.”
But it insisted the Israeli government “already” allowed “significant amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza every single day, including food, water and medicine”.
Additional reporting by Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Berlin and Laura Dubois in Brussels
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