Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous report:

President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured an “aid distribution” site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday. During the U.S. envoy’s highly stage-managed visit, at least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave, including 49 people seeking food aid with more than 270 injured.

The visit came as the leading international authority on food crises—the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—this week said that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” warning that the situation has reached “an alarming and deadly turning point” and predicting “widespread death” without immediate action.

“A theatrical performance is currently taking place at the U.S. aid distribution centers, attended by Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff: A civilized distribution of aid, without repression and pepper gas, without gunfire or casualties, without stampedes,” Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and a coordinator for local NGOs based in Deir al-Balah, said. “Today, the goal is to discredit thousands of video clips, to wipe away the blood of nearly 1,000 starving martyrs and hundreds of wounded in the traps of humiliation.” [Continue reading…]