Donald Trump says Gaza is a 'mess' as Israel denies starvation crisis

Australia Broadcast Center

28-07-2025

US President Donald Trump has labelled Gaza "a mess" and says Israel would have to "make a decision" about its next steps in the strip, hours after aid restrictions were eased.
Speaking at his golf course in Scotland, the president suggested Hamas had changed its stance on negotiations to release the 50 Israeli hostages the group still held captive, in exchange for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged strip.
"They had a routine discussion the other day and all of a sudden [Hamas] hardened up," he said.
"They don't want to give them back, and so Israel's going to have to make a decision."
Mr Trump said the situation in Gaza had deteriorated dramatically.
More than 100 humanitarian agencies had warned the strip was facing mass starvation, as Israeli restrictions on aid fuelled shortages of food and other supplies.
Israel denied its actions had caused a starvation crisis, instead blaming Hamas for creating the situation.
Palestinian health authorities said 133 people had died from starvation in the last week, with 87 of them children.
"You know, when I see the children and when I see, especially over the last couple of weeks, and people are stealing the food, they're stealing the money, they're stealing the money for the food, they're stealing weapons, they're stealing everything," Mr Trump said.
"It's a mess. That whole place is a mess."
He suggested it was a mistake by then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw from Gaza, although he could not name which Israeli leader had been responsible for the move.
"The Gaza Strip, you know, was given many years ago so that they could have peace — that didn't work out too well," he said.
"When Israel gave that up, whoever was the prime minister at the time, who I know who it was — but it was not exactly a very clever thing to do, because that was given so that they finally have peace.
"And it's actually made the situation worse."
Ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas have collapsed, with the White House's special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff saying the militant group displayed a "lack of desire to reach" a deal.
"There is no point in continuing negotiations under blockade, extermination and starvation of our children, women and people in the Gaza Strip," Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya said on Sunday night.
"The immediate and dignified entry of food and medications to our people is the real and serious expression of the viability of continuing negotiations."
Despite the stalemate, Israel has bowed to international pressure over the humanitarian crisis which has developed in Gaza.
The Netanyahu Government ordered a partial easing of the aid restrictions in the strip, with the changes coming into force on Sunday local time.
Pallets of aid were dropped across Gaza by the Israeli, Jordanian and United Arab Emirates air forces, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had established "secure corridors" for the United Nations and other agencies to distribute aid.
There are reports that as many as 11 Palestinians were injured as the pallets fell on their tents.
Even with more supplies entering Gaza, it remains a dangerous situation for Palestinians trying to secure supplies.
The ABC found Alaa Abu Muteer, 47, lying on a thin mattress in the Al-Shifa hospital in a corridor full of injured Palestinians.
"Currently, I am unemployed. I went to bring food for my children. I reached the location, and saw there Israeli tanks that began opening fire on the people, and I was shot in my back," he said.
"I have [10] children. They are all hungry, and I am also hungry.
"I am looking for a mouthful of bread. I now need treatment for the wounds that I have."
The IDF told the ABC it was not aware of any shootings in the area.
Marwari Al-Barari, 39, said she feared the aid situation in Gaza had fuelled a dangerous culture.
"This has taught our children to use knives, things like that," she said.
"I saw a 10-year-old boy carrying a knife. Where is he going to? He said he is going to the aid distribution."
She said the airdrops were the wrong approach.
"I fully reject it, because I was in the south and it happened in front of my eyes. The people were living next to me, and the parachutes came down," she said.
"There was a boy, 12 years old, that was killed on the spot from a parachute.
"Also, these parachutes cause the barbarism and killing and bullying and stabbing and so forth. I reject it in full."
Israel has accused humanitarian organisations of refusing to pick up supplies which have been dropped on the Gaza side of the border fence.
In response, Israel has been accused of making it too difficult and too dangerous to collect the supplies.
"We have hundreds of trucks that are waiting on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
"We've just announced that formally — here are safe corridors.
"And the UN has no excuses left. No excuses left, stop lying. Stop finding excuses, do what you have to do, and stop accusing Israel deliberately of this egregious falsehood."
The prime minister again denied there was a starvation crisis in Gaza, despite changing his government's policy in the strip and the international consensus on the situation.
"Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza — what a bold-faced lie," Mr Netanyahu said.
"There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.
"Hamas rob, steals this humanitarian aid and then accuses Israel of not supplying it."
Aid agencies have repeatedly denied that there is any evidence of Hamas stealing food and other items.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, urged the international community to continue pressuring Israel to allow more aid in.
"When we think it can't get worse, it gets worse," he said.
"Children are starving and dying in front of our eyes.
"Gaza is a dystopian landscape of deadly attacks and total destruction."