Basem Naim, a Hamas official, said on Facebook that Witkoff had mischaracterized a Hamas response that was “very close” to what Witkoff himself proposed. The U.S. envoy, in his Thursday remarks, was “serving the Zionist position,” Naim said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. announcement and pledged to work with Washington on alternatives.
Much of the rest of the world has escalated its criticism of Israel, whose military operations and evacuation orders have pushed most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people into an ever-shrinking fraction of the enclave, even as food supplies and access to them have diminished. But while Trump has sometimes grown exasperated with Netanyahu, he has maintained strong backing for Israel, often chiding the Biden administration for its “weak” support and attempts to use military and diplomatic leverage to increase humanitarian assistance.
Roughly a third of the Gaza population is going multiple days without eating, according to the United Nations. Already overwhelmed hospitals have been reporting rising deaths from starvation and a lack of medical supplies and fuel, with increasingly shocking images of human suffering emerging daily.
