After Gaza Famine Report, U.S. Is Mostly Silent and Israel Defiant

A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration.

Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza.

“Tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent,” Mr. Huckabee wrote on X.

Without pressure from the United States, Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to shift his conduct in the nearly two-year war in Gaza, analysts say. President Trump has yet to comment on the report, which was released Friday, although he suggested last month that there was starvation in Gaza.

Mr. Netanyahu is “clearly more comfortable with the fact that Donald Trump is not going to impose costs or consequences that would constitute real pressure,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat who joined negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians during the 1990s.

After months of warnings, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a panel of food security experts backed by the United Nations, said Friday that it had found that Gaza City and its surrounding areas were suffering from famine. The group blamed a number of factors for the dire situation, including stringent Israeli restrictions on aid and warned that, by September, central and southern Gaza also could face famine.

Israel denied that it intended to starve Gazans and said it was doing everything possible to deliver food into the devastated territory. In a statement, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged that there had been some “temporary shortages” but said those were swiftly remedied.

Israel and the United States have backed their own, much-criticized aid initiative in Gaza, in which American security contractors oversee the distribution of boxes of food at sites behind Israeli military lines. Hundreds of people have been killed near the sites, according to Gaza health officials.

Many of Israel’s traditional allies, including Britain, were far from swayed. “The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe,” David Lammy, the British foreign minister, said in a statement on Friday. “This is a moral outrage.”

The famine report was the latest in a series of recent contentious episodes involving Israel in which the Trump administration either stayed out of the fray or backed Mr. Netanyahu.

When Mr. Trump entered office earlier this year, many Palestinians had hoped the president would fulfill his campaign promise to end wars and press Israel to wind down the Gaza offensive.

But while U.S. officials are still seeking to mediate a truce between Israel and Hamas, President Trump’s attention is now elsewhere. In recent weeks, he has focused on efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Israel is preparing for a massive assault on Gaza City in what Mr. Netanyahu describes as an effort to decisively rout Hamas. The plan has divided opinion in Israel, as relatives of the remaining living hostages still held by Hamas fear that such an attack could imperil their loved ones further.

While many European countries, including some close allies of Israel, have warned the operation could be a disaster for Palestinians and hostages alike, Mr. Trump has backed Israel’s demand.

“We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media earlier this week. “The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be.”

Earlier this week, Israeli authorities approved the contentious E1 settlement project, which would see about 3,400 new housing units built in the central West Bank. About 500,000 Israeli settlers live among 3 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory.

The E1 project had been delayed for about two decades under U.S. pressure. Critics say it would bisect the West Bank, posing a major challenge for the contiguity of any future Palestinian state.

France, Britain, Australia and more than a dozen other countries immediately denounced the plan as illegal and a violation of international law. The Trump administration, however, stayed silently, although Mr. Huckabee told Israeli radio that the move was fundamentally Israel’s decision.