A phone call between US President Donald Trump and “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly escalated into a shouting match on July 28 over the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

 

The confrontation was reported by NBC News, citing “two former US officials and a Western official”.

 

The dispute followed Netanyahu's public statement that "there is no starvation in Gaza". A day later, Trump publicly contradicted the claim while in Scotland, stating that "based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry" adding that he was “not particularly convinced" by Netanyahu’s claims.

 

“You can’t fake that,” Trump said at the time.

 

According to the NBC report, Netanyahu demanded a phone call with Trump and repeated his denial during the private call hours later, Trump "interrupted... and began yelling," saying his aides had shown him proof of starving children.

 

Netanyahu said in the call that reports of starvations in Gaza had been “fabricated” by Hamas and that hunger is not widespread, to which Trump interrupted and began shouting, saying he didn’t want to hear the hunger in Gaza dismissed as “fake”.

 

The report describes the phone call as “a direct, mostly one-way conversation about the status of humanitarian aid” in which Trump “was doing most of the talking,” according to a former US official who was briefed on the call.

 

The reported exchange is set against a dire humanitarian situation. UN-backed food security experts have stated that a "worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out" in Gaza, with evidence of "widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease".

 

Over 300,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition, and 154 malnutrition-related deaths have been documented since the war began.

 

The UN reported that the average of 70 aid trucks entering daily is far short of the 500-600 trucks needed, complicating aid distribution to those in need.