Trump officials visit controversial aid site in Gaza

Hungry Palestinians rush to receive flour and infant formula at humanitarian aid distribution point at the Zikim border crossing in Gaza on Friday.

US officials, including special envoy Steve Witkoff and ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, visited aid distribution sites in Gaza on Friday. Witkoff said he spent five hours in the enclave to better understand the humanitarian situation and to relay it back to US President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Palestinians said that the Israeli military shot at them while they waited to receive food near the same US-backed aid distribution hub that Witkoff visited in southern Gaza. One hospital said it had received at least three people who were killed and six who were injured by gunfire near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution center.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it fired warning shots to prevent a group of people advancing toward its troops, after calling on the group to distance itself. The IDF said it was not aware of any casualties resulting from its fire but was investigating the incident.

If you’re just joining us, here are some of the other latest headlines:

Ahmad Abu Armanah is treated for a gunshot wound to his abdomen, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on Friday.

Palestinians said that the Israeli military shot at them while they waited to receive food near the same US-backed aid distribution hub in southern Gaza visited by US envoy Steve Witkoff on Friday.

The nearby Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said it had received at least three people who were killed and six who were injured by gunfire near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution center in al-Shakoush, Rafah. It said many other injured people were being treated at a Red Cross field hospital.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it fired warning shots to prevent a group of people advancing toward its troops, after calling on the group to distance itself. The IDF said it was not aware of any casualties as the result of its fire but was investigating the incident.

A US embassy spokesperson said it had not received “reports of clashes or injuries of any kind in the vicinity of the visit.”

Eyewitnesses told CNN the Israeli military shot at people who had gathered at Al Tina, where residents wait before moving on to the distribution site at al-Shakoush.

“As soon as Witkoff was in the area, there was random gunfire. The shooting intensified, along with drones and quadcopters in the air, and they started firing at people,” Ahmad Abu Armanah told CNN shortly after the incident. Bodies were “scattered all over the place,” he said.

CNN has reached out to the GHF for comment. Since the group began operating in Gaza at the end of May, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food, hundreds of them near GHF sites, according to the United Nations. The GHF disputes these statistics.

The family of Rom Braslavski, an Israeli hostage taken captive in the October 7 attacks, have said that they are “deeply shaken” after a video of their loved one was published by Islamic Jihad on Thursday.

In the video, Braslavski appears emaciated and is visibly upset. Islamic Jihad said it was the last video taken of the hostage before the group lost contact with the militants holding him in July. His family asked that the video not be published but approved the release of a screenshot.

“People talk a lot about what is happening in Gaza, about hunger, and I want to ask everyone who spoke about hunger: Did you see our Rom? He is not receiving food, he is not receiving medicine. He has simply been forgotten there,” Braslavski’s family said in a statement.

Rom Braslavski

“Rom is an example of all the hostages. They must all be brought home now,” the statement continued.

The family demanded an “immediate meeting” with Israeli security officials, as well as the country’s political and military leadership.

“We don’t understand what they are doing all day in the Knesset (parliament) committees - talking? Debating? Rom has been there for almost two years, and no one has even called to update us,” they said.

The family called on US special envoy Steve Witkoff to watch the video of Braslavski, also asking US President Trump to help the hostage return to Israel.

“We make an urgent plea to President Trump: Bring our son home,” the family said.

Aid parcels parachute into Gaza, as seen from Jabalia, on Friday.

Another 126 aid packages containing food were airdropped into the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the Israeli military.

Several countries - Spain, France, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel - coordinated the air drop, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

French President Emmanuel Macron posted to X about the aid drop, thanking “Jordanian, Emirati, and German partners for their support.”

Israel began allowing airdrops of aid into the enclave last week, but aid groups have criticized the delivery method as expensive, impractical and potentially dangerous.

“Airdrops are at least 100 times more costly than trucks. Trucks carry twice as much aid as planes,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said Friday.

“If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,” he said in a post on X.

Video Ad Feedback

Witkoff visits controversial Gaza aid site

1:53 • Source: CNN

Witkoff visits controversial Gaza aid site

1:53

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said he visited Gaza on Friday to better understand the humanitarian situation in the enclave and to relay it to US President Donald Trump.

“Today, we spent over five hours in Gaza – level setting the facts on the ground, assessing conditions, and meeting with (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation officials) and other agencies,” Witkoff wrote on X.

He said the purpose of the visit was to give Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”

The envoy also said that he and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, met with Israeli officials Thursday to discuss the situation in Gaza.

Palestinians gather at an aid distribution point set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on June 25.

Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, praised the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) for delivering more than 100 million meals in the territory since it was launched in May.

When Huckabee visited Gaza Friday, he was pictured in front of posters reading “100,000,000 meals delivered.”

If 100 million meals have been distributed to each of Gaza’s 2.1 million people, that works out at just one meal a day for 47 days for every resident. The GHF has been operating for nearly 70 days.

It is also unlikely that GHF meals have been able to reach all of Gaza’s residents. There are only three active distribution sites in the enclave, in southern and central Gaza – far fewer than hundreds under the previous aid model run by the United Nations. This has forced massive crowds to gather at GHF locations, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, according to the UN.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has said that the “flawed” GHF mechanism “is not designed to address the humanitarian crisis,” but to serve “military and political objectives.”

He said UNRWA has 6,000 trucks filled with aid waiting to enter Gaza, and has demanded that they be allowed in.

China has slammed the United States’ decision to impose sanctions on members of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA) for not being “in compliance” with some of their commitments.

“China is appalled by the US decision to sanction Palestinian Authority officials and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Chinese foreign ministry said Friday on X.

The sanctions, announced in a statement Thursday, would deny US visas to the unnamed Palestinian officials. The move appears to be a further step to punish those looking into alleged crimes committed by Israel as the war in Gaza continues. It was announced as special envoy Steve Witkoff was visiting Israel and as diplomatic talks in Doha to try to achieve a ceasefire are on ice.

According to the statement, the State Department told Congress that the PA and the PLO “are not in compliance with their commitments” under certain laws.

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot speaks during a press conference in Paris on July 4.

The French government will deport a Gaza student accused of reposting alleged antisemitic content on her social media and halt all evacuations from the territory, the country’s foreign minister said Friday as outrage grows over her reposts.

“She must leave the country. She does not have a place in France,” Jean-Noël Barrot said in a radio interview, without saying if authorities would return the student back to Gaza.

The minister did not name the woman, who has also been expelled from her university in the French city of Lille.

The incident has sparked a political firestorm, with the interior minister saying that her content amounts to “Hamas propaganda.”

The French and Israeli vetting of her before she arrived in France did not reveal the “antisemitic and unacceptable” posts, Barrot said, adding that all French evacuations from Gaza would now be suspended pending the results of an inquiry into the case.

France has evacuated hundreds of people from Gaza since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, and just last Tuesday Barrot said France was “dedicating lots of energy,” to get starving journalists from French news agency AFP out of the enclave. The foreign ministry has yet to say if these evacuations will continue.

Barrot added that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “inhumane,” describing it as a “scandal that must stop immediately.”

The woman’s university, Sciences Po Lille, did not specify the posts that drew controversy, but said the content was “in direct contradiction” with its values.

The college said it had annulled the student’s enrolment after consulting with several government agencies including the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, whose minister called the student’s alleged comments “extreme.”

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, left, and envoy Steve Witkoff, center, visit Gaza on Friday.

Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, praised the controversial US-backed aid mechanism in Gaza after his visit to the enclave on Friday.

He said Hamas “hates” GHF (the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) because its food reaches Palestinians in Gaza without “being looted by Hamas.”

He also praised GHF for delivering “over 100 MILLION meals” in two months.

GHF was founded in May after Israel complained that the United Nations aid distribution scheme allowed food to end up in the hands of Hamas.

But an internal US government review found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas of US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza.

GHF has been widely criticized for failing to improve conditions as the starvation crisis deepens. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food, hundreds of them near GHF sites, according to the UN. The GHF disputes this.

A Jordanian military aircraft performs an aid airdrop over Gaza on Thursday.

Dropping aid into Gaza from the sky is 100 times more expensive than delivering it in trucks via land routes, the head of UNRWA, the main United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said Friday.

Airdrops have been conducted by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and others since Israel allowed them again last week. The UN warned earlier that airdrops are dangerous as well as costly, while Palestinians in Gaza have told CNN they resent having no choice but to chase after airdropped aid “like dogs.”

Lazzarini said his agency has 6,000 trucks loaded with aid waiting for the green light to enter Gaza. Israel insists on inspecting all trucks before they cross into the territory.

Lazzarini added that during the ceasefire that lasted from January to March, UNRWA was able to bring in 500 to 600 trucks a day.