As Gaza Starvation Death Toll Rises, Trump Continues to Spread 'Big Lie' That Hamas Is Stealing Aid

A day after Israeli military officials admitted they had never found proof of the Israel Defense Forces' persistent claim that Hamas was stealing the aid that the government allowed into Gaza over the past 20 months, U.S. President Donald Trump and the top Republican in the House showed no signs that they would stop amplifying what one lawmaker called a "big lie" about Israel's assault on Palestinians.

During a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland on Sunday, a reporter asked Trump about images of children in Gaza dying of starvation—images that have been widely available for months as leading human rights groups, progressive U.S. lawmakers, and Palestinians themselves have spoken about the impact of the blockade Israel first imposed in October 2023, but which the U.S. corporate media and political establishment have only begun to condemn in recent days.

Trump immediately pointed the finger at Hamas, saying: "People are stealing the food, they're stealing the money, the're stealing the money for the food. They're stealing weapons, they're stealing everything."

He added that the spiraling, human-caused starvation crisis in Gaza is "not a U.S. problem."

The U.S. is the largest international funder of the IDF and has provided the military with billions of dollars in weapons since Israel began bombarding Gaza in October 2023—claiming it was targeting Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attacks even as it repeatedly bombed civilian infrastructure and authorized soldiers to fire at any civilians "virtually at will," according to IDF whistleblowers. The aid has continued to flow despite U.S. laws barring the government from providing military support to countries that block humanitarian relief.

"A lot of that food is getting stolen by Hamas," Trump added Sunday. "They're stealing the food, they're stealing a lot of things. You ship it in and they steal it, then they sell it."

Also on Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told NBC News' "Meet the Press" that Hamas has stolen "a huge amount" of food supplied by Israel to Gaza since October 2023.

The two Republican leaders persisted in making the claims as though The New York Times had not reported just a day earlier that IDF officials admitted the military had never found proof that Hamas systematically stole aid from the United Nations, the biggest provider of humanitarian relief in Gaza since 2023.

The officials said there was evidence that Hamas stole from smaller groups that provided a small amount of aid.

Georgios Petropoulos, who led the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza for more than a year during Israel's assault on the enclave, said the U.N. "and other organizations were dragged through the mud by accusations that Hamas steals from us."

Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson said the "falsehood" that Hamas was routinely stealing U.N. aid "was the entire basis for Israel's destruction of the U.N. aid system, its introduction of the deadly 'Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,' and its infliction of starvation."

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who on Sunday called on the Trump administration to suspend support for the privatized Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—which runs aid points where hundreds of Palestinians have been shot by Israeli forces—called the claims of Hamas stealing aid "a big lie."

"This is a big lie, the claim that when the U.N. organizations were delivering food to Palestinians, civilians, that it was being systematically diverted to Hamas," Van Hollen told CBS News' "Face the Nation."

An analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) before it was dissolved in early July also found there was no evidence that Hamas systematically stole aid, the U.S. government said late last week.

As Trump continued to spread the lie despite the IDF's admission, Tom Fletcher, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs at OCHA, warned that airdrops of aid that Israel allowed into Gaza on Sunday were a "drop in the ocean" compared to what is needed in the enclave.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said Saturday that at least 127 Palestinians have starved to death, including 85 children. A near-total blockade has been in effect since March. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported earlier this month that 85% of the population in Gaza is now in Phase 5 of starvation, defined as "an extreme deprivation of food."

Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera reported that the effect of the aid airdrops is "equivalent to none," considering the impact the monthslong blockade has had. The airdrops in northern Gaza, he said, have taken place near a restricted military area, making the aid difficult to access.

"We're talking about only seven pallets of aid filled with flour and other basic necessities. That's almost the load of one truck, or half of a truck, coming from the crossings into the Gaza Strip," said Mahmoud. Before Israel began bombarding Gaza, an average of 500 aid trucks entered the enclave each day to support the population.

"This is not a solution when we talk about passing the tipping point of this enforced starvation," he said, "and according to medical sources we spoke to earlier today, they confirmed that at this point we're going to see mass-scale starvation mortality."