President Trump Changes His Tone On The Crisis In Gaza

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So, after living in Tanzania for two years, attending the United World College East Africa, he will head off again for more education and adventure abroad.

This podcast was recorded at 1254 p.m.

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Franco has some Scotland friends.

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Deepa Shivaram.

I cover the White House.

I'm Franco Orrdonez.

I also cover the White House.

And joining us today is NPR Middle East correspondent Aya Batrawi.

Welcome to the Politics Podcast, Aya.

Hi.

All right.

So today on the show, we're talking about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Aya, we have all seen horrific pictures of people struggling to get food, access to aid in Gaza.

And let's just start there.

I mean, why has it been so difficult to get food and aid to people who are in the Gaza Strip?

It really comes down to political will.

I mean, mean, there are

tons of food aid waiting just across the border from Gaza.

This is not a place that is remote, difficult to get to.

It has borders with Egypt, borders with Israel, and borders with the Mediterranean Sea.

There's tons of food aid sitting in warehouses in Jordan and in Egypt, just across the border, waiting to get into Gaza.

Now, you know, we did see for two months earlier this year when there was a ceasefire that aid is able to flow into Gaza pretty quickly and easily.

But what we've seen for two months after that ceasefire was a total and complete blockade by Israel, a political decision to pressure Hamas, they said, in order to try to get them to agree to their terms of a ceasefire, a temporary deal.

And nothing entered Gaza.

And, you know, aid groups and countries around the world describe this as collective punishment.

So what we're seeing now on the ground has been a long time coming.

And even though Israel did slightly ease some of those restrictions by allowing in some aid, you know, the United Nations describes this as a trickle, and they say an ocean is needed.

And talk to me a little bit about what the U.S.

role has been here.

This idea of restricting aid into Gaza has been the case since the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel that killed 1,200 people there and sparked this current round of the conflict.

And it was the first words I think that we heard from the defense minister saying no food, no fuel, all of this would be cut off to Gaza.

So there have been restrictions since the beginning, and those continued under Biden, but they've really ramped up under Trump, since the ceasefire broke down.

And Aya, I mean, there's this organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

What role have they been playing here and are their efforts working?

So this speaks again to the U.S.

role in all of this.

This is an American and Israeli-backed organization that is new.

Its CEO or its chairman, the guy who runs it is an American evangelical pastor with close ties to President Trump.

And it is manned by armed American contractors.

This organization has four distribution sites in Gaza compared to the United Nations, which had 400 distribution sites basically meeting people where they are.

These four sites, they're not always operational every day.

They operate at erratic hours.

And so thousands of people are really unable to reach these sites.

And they're all in military red zones where Israel has told Palestinians not to be.

And so you're finding hundreds of people have been killed trying to reach these sites that are supposed to be providing food aid as the main sort of replacement for the United Nations on the ground.

And it's just not working.

Food isn't reaching people.

Yeah, so efforts there, even if there is food, it's hard to get to.

And Franco, I want to bring you in here because this is not a new situation.

This was happening under the Biden administration, like Aya mentioned.

Remind us what some of the efforts were under President Biden to also bring more aid into Gaza and whether that worked.

Yeah, I mean, it is a long time effort.

I mean, former President Biden made many efforts, including, if you remember that pier that they constructed with the idea that it would bring food, but had limited success.

I mean, there have been so many efforts to do this, but it's just been so difficult.

And kind of A was kind of describing the situation.

And the challenge is that Israel has put up so many roadblocks.

It did with Biden, and it's doing it now with Trump, but perhaps in an even higher and more strategic level.

And Trump has been very resistant to push back against.

Prime Minister Abibi Netanyahu.

And Biden was also, but particularly Trump and his close relationship with Israel.

Netanyahu has been very resistant to push and pressure Israel in almost any way.

Hey, I want to ask you one other question.

I mean, there's a UN-backed panel that has said a famine is unfolding in Gaza right now.

And I want to ask, what makes the famine there different from other famines around the world?

Why is this different?

This UN-backed group of independent experts who say that there is now a famine unfolding in Gaza, they gave this warning back in may and they said this would happen if conditions on the ground didn't change and they didn't change enough and so now we are seeing everybody across the gaza strip unable to find food that includes our own producer in gaza other journalists that includes doctors and patients at hospitals that includes aid workers there are no privileged palestinians in gaza who are able to find more food than others now there may be some people who have the ability to still get cash, but the markets are so bare.

You know, our producer Anas Baba was telling me that he was trying to just find what he could in the markets yesterday, and he found some stolen apples.

So apples that had been brought in and were stolen off of these trucks for $180 for two pounds.

That is just an, yeah, that's just something people in Gaza cannot afford.

And the World Food Program is the main independent international aid organization that is bringing food into Gaza outside of that Gaza Humanitarian Foundation mechanism.

And the director of emergencies there, Rick Ross, yesterday, really laid out that they need more aid.

He says that their bare minimum ask is 100 trucks a day.

And he says they're only getting about half of that cleared by Israel.

Have a listen to what he said.

We need a significant surge of humanitarian supplies to alleviate the suffering right now.

It cannot simply be symbolic measures that may look good or make for good press, but we need sustained effort at scale.

for weeks at a time.

Yeah, so this is what we've been hearing over and over again from UN agencies that just much more food needs to flood into Gaza so that those 50 trucks or whatever when they enter aren't immediately looted either by armed gangs or by just people who are so desperate and hungry because none of the aid that has come in for the United Nations, UNICEF, from the Egyptians or others that have come in since Sunday when there's been an ease of restrictions has actually made it to any warehouses for distribution.

Aya, you mentioned some of the mounting global criticism.

I'm curious, how has Israel responded to that?

Well, Israel's dug in its heels.

You know, Prime Minister Netanyahu and members of the military who are speaking to the press deny that there is starvation.

They say there is no starvation in Gaza.

Now, we did see a slight shift in tone yesterday from Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that there is suffering in Gaza, but he blames it entirely on Hamas.

He says Hamas is stealing the aid, although United Nations reports have said, and aid groups have told us, that this is not the case, that the widespread looting is actually by armed gangs who Israel has openly admitted to backing some of them to undermine Hamesk.

So that's one thing.

But Israel also says that the UN is to blame, that they're not doing their job picking up that aid.

But as you just heard from Rick Ross there, they want to see assurances and they want to see more aid coming in so that they can safely deliver that aid to warehouses and then to people.

Franco, I mean, Netanyahu is saying one thing.

The president has also started to weigh in on this as well.

You were traveling with him recently in Scotland.

What did you hear from President Trump?

Yeah, I mean, his language that did absolutely shift during the trip, and he acknowledged that kids were hungry and that there was, quote, real starvation happening in Gaza.

And that was significant because it was a break from Netanyahu, who had earlier this week been saying that kids were not starving.

So it was very significant that Trump's doing this.

And he talked a bit about it on the way back from Scotland on Air Force One.

Here it is.

I think everybody, unless they're

pretty cold-hearted or worse than that, nuts.

There's nothing you can say other than it's terrible when you see the kids.

And those are kids, you know, whether they talk starvation or not, those are kids that are starving.

Now, Trump would not go so far, though, to, you know, put much responsibility on Israel.

He would not criticize Netanyahu for his role and Israel's role for blocking aid from getting into Gaza.

Instead, he's putting all the blame on Hamas for stealing the food.

Franco, at this point, is there any sign that the U.S.

will follow up those words with any kind of actions or policy changes?

Trump did say that he's going to work with European allies to get more food to Gaza.

He actually announced a new plan to open up food centers where people in Gaza could get to without being blocked by fences and blocked by other barriers.

At the same time,

he also said that Israel Israel is going to manage these food centers.

And that is very questionable considering all the things that we have been talking about with EA and the restrictions that Israel has put onto Gaza.

All right, we are going to talk more about that after the break, and we'll be back in a moment.

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Okay, here's the show.

And we're back.

We just heard some comments that President Trump made this week.

And Franco, you were talking about some of the shifts in the president's tone.

I was wondering what political pressures might be behind that.

Yeah, I mean, Trump says he's going to work with European allies to get more food to Gaza.

And that has a lot to do with kind of global pressures.

European leaders are putting more pressure.

European citizens are putting more pressure on their leaders to do it.

It's also a greater issue in the United States.

There's a new Gallup poll that just came out that shows that more Americans are less supportive of Israel's military actions in Gaza.

And I think particularly the European pressure.

Now, for example, Kier Starmer, the prime minister of the UK, just announced that he is going to recognize a Palestinian state if there is no ceasefire or if there's not significant progress on getting aid to Gaza.

Which follows France.

Which follows France.

So these are significant steps.

I think those kind of things is one of the reasons why you're hearing more from Trump.

At the same time, Trump is not willing to go that far.

When he was asked about Keir Starmer's comments on Air Force One, he said he was not going to play that game.

And he said doing that would essentially reward Hamas.

And he said he would not go that far.

There are some potential fissures happening amongst the Republicans who support Trump too.

I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, congresswoman from Georgia, made some comments earlier this week and called what's happening in Gaza a genocide.

How is that potentially factoring into Trump's rhetoric?

I mean, I do think it's another example of why Trump is kind of walking this tightrope and being so careful with every single measure.

Because among some Republicans, they are continuing to support Israel and want more action.

But then, on other, as you point out, the Marjorie Taylor Greens, the Steve Bannon, his former chief advisor, they are being more critical of Israel and pushing the United States not to get more involved.

They think it is not in the U.S.

interest.

So it is kind of a balancing act.

At the same time, I don't necessarily see Trump shifting that much, considering among Republicans, there is still quite a bit of support for Israel.

Yes, there are fewer Americans who support Israel's actions, but the number specifically among Republicans has remained pretty steady at around 70%, 71%.

And I think until you see those kind of numbers changed, I wouldn't anticipate a significant change.

For the first time in the war, two Israeli organizations also described what's happening as a genocide.

One of them is the group at Selim, and they called it our genocide.

So that is a significant shift also happening in Israel.

And there were also five university presidents, including Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute, and Hebrew University, some major universities, wrote an open letter to Netanyahu saying, as

people of the Holocaust, we cannot do this to the people in Gaza.

And you must ease the suffering, end the famine, and condemn your own ministers who've been calling for the destruction of Gaza and for the displacement of its people from there.

So we're even seeing kind of a shift in tone among the Israeli public who are also for the first time in the war seeing on TV some of the images coming out of Gaza of the people there.

Oh, wow.

I wonder from both of you if you could answer this.

I mean, we're coming up on two years almost of this war since the October 7th attack happened.

At this point, is there any kind of red line that Israel could cross where the U.S.

might change their policy or might, you know, act differently here?

Well, first, of course, Israel vehemently denies that it is committing genocide in Gaza and

says that its war is moral and just.

But

this question of red lines is one I've constantly been asking too throughout the war because the death toll just from Israeli airstrikes, gunfire, and attacks has surpassed 60,000 people killed.

A third of them, so we're talking about nearly 19,000 of them are children.

And you also have these increasing number of deaths from malnutrition.

So to put it into context, for the first six six months of the year, there were 11 deaths recorded in Gaza from malnutrition.

In July, we're already at more than 85 deaths from malnutrition.

It's hard to say what a red line would be that has to be crossed for the U.S.

to take more action.

I think it more has to do with what is going to be the political atmosphere.

Not the red line necessarily for the U.S., but what is the red line for the American public?

What is the red line for the global public that they will take more action?

I think you are seeing that more now with the images that are coming out of Gaza and the push.

Obviously in the UK, a red line was being pushed and it led for the prime minister to make this very strong statement of supporting a Palestinian state.

Trump is not near that yet.

But if the American public start kind of speaking out, if that number, as I said earlier, of Republicans starts to change and the voices of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steve Bannon take a little more hold.

Maybe you could, but I'm not seeing that ground swell here in the United States, at least, how you're seeing it in European and other parts of the world, where it could actually push Trump and the U.S.

government to take more action.

But that could absolutely change because the images coming out of Gaza are just incredibly horrible.

All right, we're going to have to leave it there for today.

Aya Batrawi, thank you so much for bringing your reporting to the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Deepa Shivaram.

I cover the White House.

And I'm Frank Ordonez.

I also cover the White House.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

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