Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have killed more than 100 people in the last 24 hours and injured hundreds more, according to the Health Ministry, as President Donald Trump tours the Middle East with few remarks on Israel's intensifying war on the enclave.
The United States would no longer give "lectures on how to live" to the Middle East, Trump said, as he focused instead on speeches about American glory, luxury jets and handshakes with billionaires.
Trump wrapped up his four-day tour of the region Friday, which included stops in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but not Israel, skirting attention on ceasefire negotiations or the lifting of Israel's total blockade on aid entering Gaza.
Since March 2, Israel has blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine or commercial goods into Gaza, which Israeli officials say is intended to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages. United Nations officials have accused Israel of using “starvation a bargaining chip.”
The aerial offensive is raising fears of another ground invasion, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that he would order the military to ramp up its operations and seize the entire strip.
One of those Israeli missiles landed on the home of 11-year-old Ibrahim Al-Banna in southern Gaza on Thursday evening. Ibrahim's uncle Abd Al-Banna arrived at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, carrying his dead body wrapped in a green blanket. The boy's mother broke down into tears, seeing her son's body on a gurney, a NBC News crew witnessed.
“My darling, my Abdu … you are my heart … I wish it were me instead of you,” she said, crying and embracing his lifeless body.
As his family wrapped Ibrahim's body into a white funeral shroud at the morgue, his uncle leaned into him and said, "When you meet God, tell him they left Gaza alone — without food, without water, without hope.”
Aside from broadly declining to discuss human rights issues with Middle Eastern officials, as previous U.S. leaders have done, Trump's public statements on Gaza has been limited to saying he wanted to make Gaza a “freedom zone.” He did not elaborate on details of such a proposal, but said Friday, “We're looking at Gaza. And we're going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”
Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu has been strained in the weeks ahead of his trip as they grow apart on two of the region's most pressing issues: the war in Gaza and aggression from Iran, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials with the knowledge of the tensions told NBC News.
Despite an alignment on display in the early days of Trump's administration, in which he encouraged the Israeli military to “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza and restarted supplying weapons to Israel that then-President Joe Biden had paused, Trump has since become frustrated with the staunch U.S. ally, including Netanyahu’s decision to intensify the military offensive on the enclave.
In turn, Netanyahu is said to be frustrated with Trump’s refusal to support military strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites, opting instead to negotiate with Iran, and for stepping back from U.S. strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Israel's intensified strikes on Gaza were paired with ongoing violence in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have ramped up their raids and settler violence has soared.
The Israeli military killed five members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad on Thursday, the group's military wing said after Israeli forces surrounded their homes in a West Bank town. The raid was in response to a gunman opening fire on a vehicle carrying Tzeela Gez, a pregnant 30-year-old Israeli woman who was being driven to the hospital. Gez died while giving birth, though her baby survived.
Netanyahu said he was “deeply shocked by the horrific attack.” Hamas praised it as "heroic."
Palestinian health officials say more than 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel killed about about 1,200 people with about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
