US Middle East envoy visits aid distribution sites in Israel, criticized for attacks that left 850 dead

US President Donald Trump's special envoy visited an aid distribution center in the Gaza Strip on Friday, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said.

"This morning I joined Steve Witkoff (the White House Middle East envoy) on a visit to Gaza to learn the truth about the GHF aid centers. We received briefings from the Israeli military and spoke to people on the ground. GHF delivers over 1 million meals a day - an incredible feat!" Huckabee wrote on social media site X, amid widespread criticism of the new aid distribution system.

It has not yet been revealed which of the three locations the GHF maintains in Rafah was visited by Witkoff and Huckabee.

The three locations in this southern Gaza city are SDS1, in the northwestern neighborhood of Tal al-Sultan, which has been closed for months; SDS2, in the Saudi neighborhood (also in the northwest), where shortly before the Americans arrived, the Israeli army killed a child waiting for food distribution; and SDS3, in the militarized Morag corridor.

The GHF also has a fourth distribution point in central Gaza, near the Bureij refugee camp. The north has been excluded from its project, despite the fact that around one million people are sheltering in Gaza City.

In total, since these points began operating on March 27 until July 31, 1,373 Palestinians have died while trying to obtain food both in GHF centers (859) and on roads where they were waiting for trucks with humanitarian aid (514), according to the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR).

The United Nations has rejected these points from the outset, asserting that they constitute a "militarization" of humanitarian aid, as they are surrounded on the outside by the Israeli Army and secured on the inside by American mercenaries.

In addition to the shootings outside these distribution points by the Army, inside the centers the mercenaries use stun grenades to disperse the Palestinians, and mercenaries have even opened fire on the population.

Witkoff's inspection of the yet-to-be-determined distribution site is intended to "finalize a plan to deliver more food," Republican administration spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt announced Thursday.

Prior to Witkoff's visit, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) harshly criticized the aid distribution system established by Israel and the United States through the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF), which it said had become a "death trap" for Gazans.

After nearly 22 months of a devastating war triggered by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, the Gaza Strip faces "widespread famine" according to the UN and is entirely dependent on humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, the Civil Defense in Gaza reported 11 people killed Friday by Israeli airstrikes and gunfire, including two people who were near a GHF site waiting for aid.

With information from AFP and EFE