STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We're spending much of this half hour trying to understand what's happening in Gaza. Images out of Gaza show increasingly desperate people as Israel continues its war against Hamas. Israel's prime minister has said there is, quote, "no starvation in Gaza." President Trump, normally Benjamin Netanyahu's ally, has apparently seen the televised video and says there obviously is starvation.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are - that's real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can't fake that.
INSKEEP: The president talks of setting up food centers in Gaza. The United States has been involved in numerous other efforts to get food into there, past and present. In recent days, Israel has let in some additional foodstuffs. NPR's Emily Feng is reporting from Tel Aviv. Hi, Emily.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: How has the extra global attention in recent days altered Israel's approach, if at all?
FENG: Well, you just heard Trump directly push back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and it's a combination of that kind of international pressure that's led Israel to loosen its restrictions on Gaza. So starting this past Sunday, more than 100 trucks of food entered. Yesterday - Monday - Israel said more than 200 trucks entered. But that is a fraction of what big aid organizations say they have ready to cross into Gaza and what one of them called a drop in the ocean of what they say Palestinians need in order to make a dent in the levels of malnutrition that we're seeing across the Gaza Strip. We have a producer in Gaza, NPR's Anas Baba. He has been trying to track every truck crossing into Gaza. That's difficult to do 'cause the deliveries come at irregular hours, and there's relatively little of it. So nearly all the aid trucks he's been able to see are immediately looted. He's witnessed the strongest of people swarming the trucks that come in, taking the food before it can reach the people who're the weakest, who might need it the most.
Israel's military has said the problem is not them blocking the food but aid organizations that are not able to deliver it to people in Gaza. Meanwhile, aid organizations say to us it's because Israel's military is making it too dangerous for them to deliver that food.
INSKEEP: Given the discussion of starvation - Prime Minister Netanyahu saying there's no starvation; President Trump saying obviously there is - what are the experts saying?
FENG: So there's a group of U.N.-backed experts today that issued an alert this morning saying, quote, "the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip." It did not outright declare a famine, but they warned that without immediate action, there would be more deaths due to malnutrition in Gaza. In order for this panel to reach what they call the famine threshold, which is the worst degree on the standardized scale of hunger that people use, that means they found at least 30% of children in Gaza are experiencing acute malnutrition.
But a caveat - they used data on malnutrition that was collected up to four days ago, so that's before Israel started letting in more food. But the fact that this panel felt that it was necessary to issue this alert at this particular time shows how dire the situation has become. And Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, was asked this morning about starvation in Gaza after this alert went out, and he told reporters, quote, "the reality is the opposite." And he said Israel's been working hard to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.
INSKEEP: How are Israelis debating what's happening there?
FENG: The issue of Gaza has really divided Israelis. Many of them, at this point, disagree on what the ultimate aim of Israel's war in Gaza is, and they're now debating whether hunger in Gaza is real. We've reported it is, and we stand by that reporting. But what has changed a bit in the Israeli mainstream is before, very little news or images about Gaza made it into mainstream Israeli media. And this month, images of hungry, starving children are being shown on some outlets. It's a limited change, but it is a change nonetheless.
INSKEEP: NPR's Emily Feng, thanks so much.
FENG: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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