Gaza famine deepens. Trump breaks with Netanyahu, pushes open “food centers.” UK, France threaten to recognize Palestine; Canada, Australia may follow. Arab states back PA control of Gaza. Israeli generals doubt war goals; hardliners resist change
* As famine conditions continue to take hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under increasing pressure from internal and external allies, as well as opponents and critics, to end the war in Gaza.
* President Trump, supportive of Netanyahu on most issues, has broken with him on the humanitarian situation and suggests the U.S. and its allies might unilaterally take additional steps to provide aid to Gaza civilians.
* European and Arab leaders are threatening to recognize an independent State of Palestine unless Netanyahu abandons maximalist war goals and widens humanitarian aid agency access to Gaza.
* Netanyahu’s coalition partners oppose any alteration of Israel’s goals to eliminate Hamas and favor continuing to limit aid as a means of pressuring Hamas.
The sharp deterioration of the humanitarian situation (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-july-28/) in the Gaza Strip is forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face choices he has been able to avoid in the nearly two years since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. In March, Netanyahu brushed aside a ceasefire to resume ground operations (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-june-2/) in Gaza in an effort to eliminate Hamas as a political and military force in the territory, and in the Palestinian national movement more broadly. Israel has also sharply limited the flow of international aid into the enclave as a means of pressuring Hamas to surrender and release the remaining 50 Israelis held hostage (of which 20 are believed alive). The aid restrictions — and their dire consequences for the Gazan civilian population — have brought unprecedented criticism of Israel’s government from not only its domestic and international critics, but also from its
allies, including U.S. President Donald Trump.
Beyond global insistence to end limitations on the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, Netanyahu is coming under broad pressure to articulate a roadmap (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-may-13/) to wind down Israel’s military involvement in Gaza. President Trump, who has often defended Netanyahu’s Gaza policy (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-april-9/) , has not urged Netanyahu to end the war. Still, he has publicly broken with the Israeli leader on the causes and the urgency of addressing the severe humanitarian situation. Trump said on Monday that he disagrees with Netanyahu’s claim that there is no starvation in Gaza, stating: “Based on television, I would say [Netanyahu’s assertions are] not particularly [accurate] because those children look very hungry. Later, he said, “There is real starvation in Gaza — you can’t fake that.” The facts underlying Trump’s departure from Netanyahu were highlighted on Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification
(IPC), a panel developed by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, which issued a preliminary assessment that famine conditions are taking hold across Gaza. The body’s strongest warning yet on the rapidly growing starvation crisis stated: “The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.” Trump’s public contradiction of Netanyahu suggests his team sees the severe humanitarian conditions in Gaza as a growing policy and political problem.
Trump has taken his criticism further (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-july-3/) , suggesting the U.S. might undertake unilateral steps to alleviate the food crisis in Gaza. On Monday, Trump said the United States would work with its European allies to distribute more aid to Gaza, including setting up “food centers” without barriers. He added: “We have all of the European nations joining us, and others have also called and they want to be helpful. So we’re going to set up food centers…where the people can walk in and [there are] no boundaries. We’re not going to have fences.” The Trump proposal represented a direct refutation of Israel’s preferred aid distribution mechanism, which uses a private entity, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), to distribute aid at a limited number of heavily guarded sites, distant from population centers. That mechanism has failed to deliver large volumes of aid, and its U.S. security contractors, working with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), have
regularly caused Palestinian deaths in their efforts to end stampedes on the aid sites.
However, it is not clear that the humanitarian crisis will produce a wholesale change to Trump’s Gaza policy, which, until now, has generally deferred to Netanyahu’s insistence on war until Hamas agrees to disarm and leave Gaza entirely. In a post on his Truth Social media account on Thursday, Trump reiterated his calls for Hamas to cede Gaza (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-march-3/) , writing: “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” Yet, according to press reports, Trump and his top aides now acknowledge privately and publicly that their strategy in Gaza has not worked. The team has not been able to prevail on Netanyahu to develop a “day after” governance and security plan and withdraw from the territory in exchange for a final release of Israel’s hostages.
Far from advancing new proposals for a permanent end to the conflict, Trump’s aides appear, for now, to be pressing on with months-long efforts to forge another temporary ceasefire and hostage release. U.S. Special Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-march-24/) began a trip to Israel on Thursday – a visit ostensibly to discuss the humanitarian crisis but also focused on attempting to finalize a new ceasefire. The trip was Witkoff’s first to Israel in nearly three months and will include travel to Gaza and visits to Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid centers, according to a U.S. official. As an indication that talks are ongoing, Israeli officials told Axios media that on Tuesday, Israel sent Hamas a document, through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, with comments on the response Hamas gave last week to the latest ceasefire deal proposal.
Pushing against U.S. conflict resolution efforts are Netanyahu’s governing coalition partners, who insist the prime minister not abandon the effort to defeat Hamas outright — even at the risk of a broader rift with Trump. Some Israeli hardliners want Netanyahu to “double-down” (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-february-5/) on the current strategy by adding restrictions on food supplies to Gaza and threatening to annex parts of Gaza if Hamas refuses to cede power and its weapons arsenal. However, Netanyahu’s own security commanders back U.S., European, and Arab insistence on redefining the goals of the war and terminating the IDF offensive. Senior IDF commanders reportedly assess that Israel’s current strategy will not “eliminate” Hamas from the Gaza Strip, and they are concerned about the escalating casualty count and high operational tempo from the ongoing ground battles in the enclave. The commanders’ assessment is backed by Israeli public opinion that wants Netanyahu to agree
to end the war in exchange for the release of all remaining Israeli hostages.
Impatient for a ceasefire and shaken by the humanitarian crisis, regional and global stakeholders have sought to move forward — without deference to the Trump team — by adding direct pressure on Netanyahu to end the conflict. On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-july-12/) said the UK would join France in recognizing a State of Palestine by September—unless Israel takes “substantive steps” to end the war in Gaza and allow in more humanitarian aid. The move came days after France said it would use the UN General Assembly meeting in the fall to recognize Palestine formally. Also Tuesday, Canada and Australia were among a group of 15 country signatories on a letter at the UN that said they were either committed, willing, or at least “positively considering” recognizing a Palestinian state. Nearly 140 countries have recognized a State of Palestine, but France, the UK, and Canada would constitute the first nations in the Group of 7 affluent
Western economies to declare recognition. Israeli leaders across the political spectrum, backed by Israeli public opinion surveys, oppose the “two-state solution.” As do Israeli leaders, Trump’s team also criticizes recognition as a “reward” for the Hamas October 7 attack, even though the declarations would have little practical effect on the ground as long as Israel refuses to concur.
The leaders of the major Arab states, facing public opinion outraged by the famine conditions in Gaza, are adding pressure on the Netanyahu government, even as they join the U.S. in insisting Hamas cede control of Gaza. Arab officials attended a UN-sponsored meeting on Tuesday, alongside European diplomats, to revive the long-proposed two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. Israel and the U.S. boycotted the meeting. The meeting called for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state but also nodded to Israeli and U.S. demands by adopting a declaration stating: “Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA), with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.” The meeting followed a call Monday by the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations for both Israel and Hamas to leave Gaza, allowing the PA to administer the territory — a “day after” governance plan
(https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-october-18/) the U.S. has supported. Global diplomats hailed the UN meeting’s declaration as a breakthrough. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stated: “For the first time, Arab countries and those in the Middle East condemn Hamas, condemn October 7, call for the disarmament of Hamas, call for its exclusion from Palestinian governance, and clearly express their intention to normalize relations with Israel in the future.” The text, co-signed by France, Britain, and Canada among other Western nations, also supported the preferred U.S. and Arab strategy for ending the conflict by calling for the possible deployment of foreign forces to stabilize Gaza after the end of hostilities.