‘I don’t know’: Trump appears to contradict Netanyahu about Gaza starvation crisis

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said in a Monday statement that another 14 people died of malnutrition over the previous 24 hours.

​The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said in a Monday statement that another 14 people died of malnutrition over the previous 24 hours.   

LONDON, NEW YORK and GAZA – President Donald Trump said he doesn’t know if he believes claims that there is no starvation occurring in Gaza.

Asked if he believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there is no starvation crisis in the strip, Trump replied, “I don’t know,” and then mentioned images of starving children in Gaza appearing on TV.

“I don’t know. I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry, but we’re giving a lot of money and a lot of food, and other nations are now stepping up,” Trump said Monday as he met with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland.

Starmer quickly chimed in, calling what’s happening in Gaza a humanitarian crisis and “an absolute catastrophe.”

Those comments came hours after the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said in a statement that another 14 people died of malnutrition over the previous 24 hours, including two children.

This bring the total number deaths from famine and malnutrition since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, to 147, including at least 88 children, according to the Ministry of Health.

At least 11 people were killed on Monday morning near aid distribution sites, two local hospitals that received the bodies told ABC News.

The hospital officials said the aid sites were run by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), but a GHF spokesperson told ABC News no incidents had been reported to them as of midday Monday.

Over the last 24 hours, 100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the Ministry of Health said.

Appearing at an event in Jerusalem Sunday with Paula White-Cain, senior advisor of the White House Faith Office, Netanyahu again denied that there was starvation in Gaza.

“Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza. What a bold-faced lie. There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza,” Netanyahu said, in part.

“We enabled humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza. Otherwise, there would be no Gazans,” Netanyahu further said. “And what is interdicting the supply of humanitarian aid is one force – Hamas. Again, the reverse of the truth. Hamas robs, steals this humanitarian aid and then accuses Israel of not supplying it.”

An analysis compiled by USAID officials examining more than 150 reported incidents involving the theft or loss of U.S.-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza said it failed to find any evidence that Hamas engaged in widespread diversion of assistance, according to a presentation reviewed by ABC News.

Israel on Sunday said it was beginning daily 10-hour “tactical pauses” in several densely populated areas to facilitate the movement of aid into the territory. However, 29 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes since midnight local time, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.

The “tactical pauses” come as Hamas warned on Monday that more than 40,000 babies could die due to a lack of formula. Recently, the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, said in a press release that it is “always about to reach the end of the baby formula supply.”

“There are over 40,000 infants under one year old in Gaza currently at risk of slow death due to this brutal and suffocating blockade,” Hamas said in a statement on Monday. “We urgently demand the immediate and unconditional opening of all crossings and the swift entry of baby formula and humanitarian aid.”

Abdulwhhab Abu Alamrain, a volunteer at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza and a worker with the medical data department at MSF, told ABC News last week that whenever supplies of ready-to-use formula do run out, using dried formula may not be an adequate solution.

“The dried formula is not the best choice in our situation [because] of the water contamination and sterile preparation steps, risking babies for infection and water-borne infections,” Abu Alamrain said.

Beckie Ryan, deputy director for programming for the international humanitarian agency CARE, who is currently in Deir al Balah in central Gaza, said her team is running a primary health clinic with a nutrition testing facility. Up to 32% of patients coming through the clinic are malnourished, primarily women and children, she said.

“A couple of months ago, this was 19% so the shift is really dramatic,” Ryan told ABC News. “Currently at our clinic, we still have some supplies of the therapeutic food stuff, so what you would give children, in particular, if they are severely acutely malnourished.”

“However, we don’t have any supplies left of the preventative supplements, so children that are coming in that are just outside of that severe bracket, we’re not able to support them to stay out of that,” Ryan continued. “So we’re seeing the slide downwards into really acute malnutrition that’s going to have life-long consequences on development.”

Ryan said the CARE team has about one month’s worth of supply of ready-to-use therapeutic food, but it is being rationed for use by only the most critical patients. She added that there have been many grim and heartbreaking interactions at the clinic with parents who must choose which of their children to feed.

“We had a mother come in that was telling us that she’s got to choose now which child she is going to feed for the day,” Ryan said. “Does she try and find food for the baby, or does she try and find food for the toddler and that age 5-year-old bracket, which was really heartbreaking to hear that.”

Ryan added that the effects of the hunger crisis are also now being seen among humanitarian workers who have been in Gaza for the past two years and now have little energy and are struggling to concentrate.

Over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced in a statement that it would be coordinating aid airdrops with foreign nations.

Organizations, including MSF, criticized the airdrops, claiming in part that they’re “notoriously ineffective and dangerous.”

“The roads are there, the trucks are there, the food and medicine are there, everything is ready to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza just a few kilometres away. All that is needed is for Israeli authorities to decide to facilitate its arrival,” the MSF statement also said.

Ryan said the air drops simply can’t deliver enough aid to meet the needs of Gazans.

“The airdrops are not a sufficient response. One airdrop equals the amount that can be delivered in one truck, so it’s just not possible to meet the scale to feed the whole population of Gaza; 100% are now reliant on food aid,” she said. “It’s really expensive and it’s incredibly unpredictable. We don’t know where it’s going to land. We can’t make sure that it’s getting to the absolutely most vulnerable people in need, and it is dangerous in terms of risk of injury, and people are racing to try and pick up these packages.”