US governmentSteve Witchoff, the Middle East envoy of US President Donald Trump, has visited a controversial Israel- and US-assisted assistance distribution site for the first time.
Vitkofof said that a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site’s visit was aimed at “a clear understanding of the human situation and helping to provide food and medical help to the people of Gaza”.
The journey is near the daily reports of fatal firing on the GHF points, killed in the area around the sites with at least 859 Palestinians reporting with the United Nations – a figure rejects GHF.
Israel says that his soldiers have only taken out warning shots and they do not deliberately shoot citizens.
The BBC understands that Vitchoff visited one of the GHF sites near Rafa in Southern Gaza on Friday.
He was accompanied by the Israeli Mike Hukabi and the US Ambassador to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Later posting on X, with pictures of his travel, Witcoff said: “Today, we spent more than five hours inside Gaza – the level of establishing facts on the ground, assessing situations and meeting with @ghfupdates and other agencies.”
Hukabi said that he had “got briefing from IDF and talked to people on the ground”.
He claimed that the GHF sites were “giving more than one million meals” a day “, calling it” incredible achievement “.
The GHF said that it had given 1.3 meters of food at three distribution sites on Thursday. It has not yet released data for Friday. The United Nations says that the number of food provided by GHF is much less than overall nutritional requirements.
International journalists, including the BBC, are prevented by Israel from entering Gaza independently, making it difficult to verify the claims.
Some of the Ghazans who spoke to the BBC depicted Vitkoff’s visit as “media stunts”.
Louis Mahmood, who lives in Gaza, said: “Steve Witcoff will not see hunger, only Katha Israel wants to see him.
“This journey is a hollow media stunt, not a human mission. He comes without any solution, only the points that talk are designed to brighten the image of a administration in our grief.”
The father of two living in Gaza City, Amer Khayrat said: “Gaza does not have another messenger with a press team.
A retired American special forces official working at the GHF center told the BBC last week that he had shot IDF soldiers and US contractors in a crowd of Palestinians near the sites he had worked on.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Aguiller, a special force of the US Army Green Berets, said that he had never seen this level of “cruelty and use of” cruelty and use and use of “in his entire career, an unarmed, hungry population” against “cruelty and use of” cruelty and use.
GHF called the allegations of Aguilar “clearly wrong”, described as a disgruntled former contractor, which was terminated for misconduct “, which he refuses.
In Friday campaign group, Human Right Watch (HRW) accused Israeli forces and US-supported contractors “accused of setting up a flawed, military assistance distribution system, which has changed the aid distribution in regular bloodbeaths”.
HRW immediately stopped Israeli officials to “use the deadly force as a mob control against Palestinian citizens and called the US and Israel to suspend the operation.
GHF aid sites replaced the United Nations Distribution Mechana in May, provoking international resentment. Israel accused Hamas of looting United Nations assistance, a charge Hamas.
There are four GHF sites, located inside the Israeli military areas and operated by American private security contractors.
Eyewitnesses and Medix have described the opening of a fire on the crowd near the aid points to the forces of Israel on several occasions.
In addition, United Nations agencies have given man -made warnings, there is a large number of starvation in the area.
The United Nations Human Rights Office (OCHR) said on Thursday that at least 1,373 Palestinians were killed while trying to get food aid in Gaza. Among them, 859 GHF are killed near sites, it said.
The OCHR stated that most of the Israeli were killed by the army, and when they knew about other armed groups in the same area, they said that they did not have “no information indicating their participation in these murders”.
The office said it “had no idea that these Palestinians were being directly participated in enmity or there was any threat to Israeli security forces”.
Israel has accused Hamas of provoking chaos near Hamas. The GHF rejected the United Nations numbers when contacted by the BBC.
Meanwhile, according to the Hamas-Run Civil Defense Agency, at least 10 people have died in southern and central Gaza since morning on Friday.
The figure consists of eight people, who were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes, which targets tents sheltered to the displaced people -in the center of the south and the agency said the agency in the center of the strip.
Civil defense said two other people were killed and at least 20 more injured when the Israeli forces set fire to a support distribution point with the Morg Corridor to the north of Rafa.
Local residents said that hundreds of people gathered to get food when the shooting started.
The BBC has approached the Israeli army for comments.
The Hamas-Interested Health Ministry said that 82 people were killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours on Friday, out of which 52 were reported to be seeking assistance.
Vitchoff met Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Thursday, described as “productive” talks by an American spokesperson.
According to Israeli media reports, a major reform of the ceasefire dialogue was discussed, including a “all-in deal”, with full disarmament of Hamas, will see all the hostages organized by Hamas released on the same exchange. Previously, the hostages were to be released in the stages.
Hamas has said that it will not return to the table until more help is allowed in Gaza to address starvation.
The US and Israel took out of the ceasefire talks last week, accused Hamas of lack of coordination and did not talk in good faith.
Hamas accused the Israeli side of interaction on important glued points in talks.
