Trump speculates Gaza ceasefire will be reached ‘within the next week’

US President Donald Trump says he thinks a ceasefire will be reached in Gaza “within the next week.”

Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office that he just spoke with some of the individuals involved in trying to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

He then pivots to highlight the recent US decision to donate $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been distributing boxes of food in Gaza from militarized zones in the Strip for the past month.

“It’s a terrible situation that’s going [in] Gaza… and we’re supplying a lot of money and a lot of food to that area because we have to,” Trump says.

“We’re, in theory, not involved in it, but we’re involved because people are dying,” he says. “I look at those crowds of people that have no food, no anything.”

He then laments that some of the aid is being stolen by “bad people,” but he says that the new GHF system is “pretty good.”

However, GHF has been marred by near-daily mass casualty incidents in which the IDF has opened fire at Palestinians trying to reach their distribution sites.

Trump says other countries should be helping address the aid crisis. Other than the US, countries have stayed away from GHF, due to its controversial mechanism that has required Gazans to walk long distances and cross IDF lines in order to pick up food.

On the other hand, the UN-backed mechanisms in Gaza have been marred by looting. Aid groups say the issue would be addressed if Israel increased the amount of aid in Gaza, so that demand would go down.

An average of just 56 trucks a day have been entering Gaza over the last month — far below the hundreds per day that aid groups say is needed to address the dire need.