By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Charlotte Greenfield

CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy became the first high profile U.S. official to visit Gaza since the war began, touring a U.S.-backed aid operation on Friday that the United Nations says is partly to blame for deadly conditions in the enclave.

Hours after Steve Witkoff visited a site run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah, Palestinian medics said Israeli forces had shot dead three Palestinians near one of the group's sites in the city on Gaza's southern edge. Reuters could not immediately verify whether it was the same location.

The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating there in May, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.

The U.N. has declined to work with the GHF, which it says distributes aid in ways that are inherently dangerous and violate humanitarian neutrality principles, contributing to the hunger crisis across the territory.

The GHF says nobody has been killed at its distribution points, and........

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