President Donald Trump’s vague plan to respond to the famine in Gaza with Israeli-approved “food centers” is being panned by humanitarian groups who say it will do little or nothing to reverse widespread starvation caused by Israel’s decision to block aid.

Trump has given only broad-brush details about the scheme after announcing it Monday, when he acknowledged that children in Gaza are starving.

As with many of Trump’s proposals, however, it is unclear how seriously the president intends to pursue it. Aid organizations fear the rollout of another new system of food aid, considering the hundreds of killings near food distribution sites operated by the American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

They also emphasize that at this point, women and children in Gaza are in need of not just food but also specialized medical care to reverse severe malnutrition.

“The proposal is ludicrous,” said Dr. John Kahler, a pediatrician who co-founded a nonprofit group MedGlobal that supports re-feeding centers for children in Gaza. “Nothing new needs to get done. It’s a simple but not easy solution: Stop the bombing, open up the gates, and let the people who know how to do it, do it.”

A Vague Plan

Trump has sketched out only the vaguest details about how the “food centers” might work after introducing the idea during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Trump told reporters Tuesday on Air Force One that Israel would “preside” over the food centers “to make sure the distribution is proper.” Israeli officials have repeatedly offered the unsupported claim that Hamas is diverting food aid, which has been widely rejected by humanitarian groups, as their justification for clamping down on the flow of aid Gaza and pushing to the sidelines established aid organizations in the region.

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