Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have killed 250 people in the last 36 hours, bringing the official death toll to over 53,000, according to local health officials, as President Donald Trump tours the Middle East with few remarks on Israel’s intensifying war on the enclave.
The U.S. would no longer give “lectures on how to live” to the Middle East, Trump said, as he focused instead on speeches of American glory, luxury jets and handshakes with billionaires.
Trump wrapped up his four-day tour of the region on 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 aid entering Gaza, which U.N. officials have said amounted to using “starvation a bargaining chip.”
Since March 2, Israel has not allowed humanitarian aid, medicine or commercial goods to enter Gaza, which officials say is to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages. The aerial offensive is raising fears of another round of ground invasion, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would give an order to ramp up the military offensive and seize the entire strip.
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 on Friday, “We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”
Israel’s intensified strikes on Gaza was paired with ongoing violence in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have ramped up their raids and settler violence has soared.
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, after a gunman opened 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.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “deeply shocked by the horrific attack.” Hamas praised it as “heroic.”
Palestinian health officials say over 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.
