A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The U.S.' Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is in Israel today, a week after ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas stalled yet again in Doha, Qatar.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
But since then, global anger over the hunger in Gaza has grown, pushing Israel to let in some additional food.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Emily Feng is with us now from Tel Aviv. Witkoff was in Israel - what? - May, so why is he returning now?
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Right. Well, a person familiar with the details but who is not authorized to speak publicly told us Witkoff is going to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to discuss getting hostages who are still in Gaza back. Now, Israel this week has been trying to project it is in lockstep with the U.S. Here's Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, this week. He was asked by a reporter about hunger reaching famine threshold levels in Gaza. In response, he first thanked President Trump for his friendship, and then he said this.
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GIDEON SAAR: It will be very hard to try to find gaps between Israel and the U.S. in terms of policies, including with regard to Gaza Strip.
FENG: But these last couple of days, we are seeing signs of some daylight emerging between Israel and the U.S. on the former's war against Hamas in Gaza. Trump this week directly contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there is starvation in Gaza. And Trump said the first lady has also seen photos of hungry children in Gaza, and he called these photos terrible. And so each side has been angling this week to put more pressure on the other. So we're seeing far-right Israeli politicians who've been discussing annexing Gaza again, moving Palestinians en masse out of Gaza if the hostages are not returned. Hamas has been putting out statements echoing criticism of Israeli restrictions on food into Gaza. And now Witkoff himself is arriving in the region.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And that pressure you mentioned is now global. I mean, France became the first G7 country to say it would recognize Palestine as a state.
FENG: Right, last week. And then the U.K. said it would do so, too, if there was not a ceasefire by September. Just overnight, my time, Canada's prime minister announced Canada intends to recognize Palestine by September as well if the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank now, makes certain political reforms. There's no sign the U.S. intends to follow all of this. And actually, Trump said that Canadian recognition of Palestinian statehood would, quote, "make it very difficult for us to make a trade deal with them."
But that aside, all these moves are making huge waves in Israel. I'm seeing a lot of signs of soul-searching and also weariness over here over the fact that Israel is still fighting this grinding war, and yet they've been unable to bring home hostages kidnapped by Hamas still being held in Gaza. One headline I saw here from a top Israeli newspaper, quote, "How We Lost The World." And there's also more pressure on Hamas. Saudi Arabia and the Arab League this week called on Hamas to relinquish power and to disarm.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And we know from our reporting that's been tougher than ever for people in Gaza, where this week a U.N.-backed panel said it's seeing, quote, "the worst-case scenario of famine unfolding." So what's been happening there?
FENG: So starting Sunday, Israel's been pausing fighting for about 10 hours a day to let in more food trucks. But in reality, we have been reporting that very little food is actually making it to people who need it. Aid organizations we've been talking to say Israel has not permitted them to bring in the volume of food and aid that they would like to see, and that scarcity means desperate people and gangs are looting these food trucks. Meanwhile, Israel does continue to strike Gaza, and they're conducting ground operations still. And so data kept by Gaza health officials indicate the official death toll from this war surpassed 60,000 people this week, and more than 18,000 of those dead are children.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Emily Feng in Tel Aviv. Thank you.
FENG: Thanks, A.
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