Trump’s Rep. says his boss wants more humanitarian aid for those in Gaza….
This as more calls for Israel to stop attacks and Hamas to lay down it’s guns….
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Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, visited Gaza and was shown one of the controversial aid sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Witkoff visited the site in Rafah and was accompanied by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
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Huckabee praised the GHF as he visited the site in Rafah – one of four GHF sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. In a social media post, he wrote: “GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!”
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Witkoff later said on Friday that his visit to US-backed aid stations in Gazawould help Washington draw up a plan to deliver more aid to the Palestinian territory. “Today, we spent over five hours inside Gaza,” Witkoff said in a post on X. He added that the purpose of the visit was to “help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza”.
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The UN human rights office said on Friday that 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip since late May, most of them by the Israeli military, AFP reports. “In total, since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of (US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys,” the UN agency’s office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement. “Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,” it added.
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Iran on Friday rejected accusations by the US and more than a dozen of its allies that Tehran had attempted to kill or kidnap dissidents, journalists and officials in Western countries. In a statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei described the claims as “baseless”, calling them “an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, the genocide in occupied Palestine”.
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France has started to airdrop 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and is urging Israel to allow full access to the area which it said was slipping into famine. President Emmanuel Macron said:“Airdrops are not enough. Israel must open full humanitarian access to address the risk of famine.”
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Finland’s president Alexander Stubb has said he is ready to approve a recognition of a Palestinian state if the government moves forward with such a proposal.
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Award-winning Israeli author David Grossman called his country’s campaign in Gaza “genocide” and said he was using the term with a “broken heart”, AFP reports. This came days after a major Israeli rights group also used the same term, amid growing global alarm over starvation in the besieged territory….
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More…American Jews want more humanitarian aid deleivered to Gaza….
A broad swath of U.S. Jews — including organizations that customarily avoid critiquing Israeli policies — are speaking out about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and urging Israel to do more to ensure the delivery of food and medicine.
There is no overwhelming consensus. On the left, some U.S. Jews contend that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is guilty of genocide. On the right, some conservative Jewish news outlets have suggested the widely verified food crisis in Gaza is a hoax.
What’s clear is that the ranks of American Jews expressing alarm at conditions in Gaza have swelled….
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A spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the staunchly pro-Israel group better known as AIPAC, welcomed Israel’s latest moves to boost aid to Gaza.
“The true key to improving the humanitarian conditions is for Hamas to surrender power and free all 50 hostages, including the 2 Americans,” Marshall Wittmann said via email.
Of major nationwide organizations, perhaps the most vehement statement came from the Reform Jewish Movement, which represents the largest branch of Judaism in the U.S.
“Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinian people in its pursuit of Israel’s destruction, but Israel must not sacrifice its own moral standing in return,” the Reform statement said….