Tehran – The visit of President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy to Gaza, framed as a humanitarian mission, appears to be a calculated effort to whitewash the humanitarian catastrophe that is widely seen in American support for Israel’s ongoing war.
Steve Witkov, accompanied by Israeli Ambassador Mike Huckabee and Israeli military officials, visited the controversial aid distribution site known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in Gaza. This is a US- and Israel-backed initiative launched in late May to provide food packages to Palestinians.
Washington and Tel Aviv portray the GHF as a civilian lifeline, but earthly reality tells a much darker story. According to UN data, Israeli forces shot and killed nearly 900 Palestinians near GHF distribution points. Additionally, more than 500 Gazans were killed along the UN aid convoy route. Since Israel launched its war with Gaza in October 2023, more than 160 Palestinians (of which more than 90 children) have died of starvation.
As the world’s rage intensifies, the death toll in Palestine from the war has exceeded 60,300. Human rights groups and international legal experts accused Israel of not only violating genocide, but also of using hunger as a weapon of war.
The United States, widely seen as enabling Israeli campaigns, is now focusing on public relations efforts to distract attention from its accomplices. Witkov’s trip appears to be part of this broader strategy. It’s more about image management strategies than addressing the root causes of Gaza’s devastation.
Human Rights Watch describes the GHFRUN site as a “death trap,” which became a normal “Bloodbaths” scene.
Anel Shelin, a former US State Department official who resigned last year in protest of President Joe Biden’s Gaza policies, criticized Witcoff and Huckabee’s visit, calling it a “glorious photo shoot aimed at obscuring the reality of the tragic humanitarian crisis that America has served its author.”
A week ago, a retired US Special Forces officer working at the GHF Center said he witnessed Israeli military and US contractors shooting and killing a Palestinian crowd near where he worked.
Lt. Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a veteran of the US Army Green Beret Special Forces, told the BBC he has never seen such a level of “indiscriminate and unnecessary use of force against civilians, namely, an unarmed, hungry population” throughout his career.
Some Gazanians who spoke with the BBC also questioned the motivation behind Witkov’s visit. “Gaza resident Louie Mahmoud said, “Steve Witkov doesn’t see hunger. Only Israel in the story wants him to see. This visit is not a humanitarian mission, but a hollow media stunt. He has no solution, only topics designed to hone the image of a regime complicit in our suffering,” added Amer Khayrat, father of two from Gaza city. The siege had to be lifted, the bombing stopped, and blind Americans’ support for the war ended. ”
Visits bare the truth behind the nakedness. US foreign policy not only allows Israel’s destruction of Gaza, but also actively participates in erasing the entire population. Despite increasing evidence of war crimes, Washington’s unwavering support for Tel Aviv reveals deep moral bankruptcy. What Gaza needs is not a gesture of goodwill from the oppressors, but an end to an international accountability and the US-Israel alliance that continues to promote suffering.