The Prime Minister's Office addressed a recent NBC report stating US President Donald Trump confronted and shouted at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a July phone call, when both leaders discussed the ongoing war in Gaza, calling it “completely false.”
"It's fake news," the PMO stated.
According to NBC, which cited two US officials, Netanyahu told Trump that reports of widespread starvation in Gaza were false, and that Hamas had fabricated them.
“Trump interrupted Netanyahu and began yelling, saying that he did not want to hear that the starvation is fake and that his aides had shown him proof that children there are starving,” officials told NBC.
The call was described by the officials as “a direct, mostly one-way conversation about the status of humanitarian aid” in which Trump “was doing most of the talking.”
“The US not only feels like the situation is dire, but they own it because of GHF,” the former official said, referring to the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
Following the call, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was deployed to the Middle East in order to be briefed on a concrete plan that could tackle the humanitarian situation, the return of the hostages, and the end of the war.
Both White House officials and Israeli officials declined to comment on the phone call.
Trump and Netanyahu's ongoing disagreement on starvation in Gaza
The situation began on July 27, after Netanyahu said in a speech that “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.”
When asked about those comments the next day during his trip to Scotland, Trump contradicted Netanyahu. “Children in Gaza look very hungry,” he said, adding that there is “real starvation.”
“You can’t fake that,” he concluded.