President Trump said what’s happening in Gaza doesn’t amount to a genocide but that Washington doesn’t want civilians in the Hamas-run enclave to “starve.”

“I don’t think it’s that. They’re in a war,” Mr. Trump replied when asked by reporters if he thought Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. 

“We want the people fed. … We want Israel to get them fed. We don’t want people going hungry, and we don’t want people to starve,” Mr. Trump said. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu meanwhile accused Hamas of committing Nazi-like atrocities against Israeli hostages, two of whom appeared in Hamas propaganda videos in the past couple of days, emaciated and unrecognizable. 

While the hostages “waste away in a dungeon,” Mr. Netanyahu said, the Hamas “monsters surrounding them — they have thick, fleshy arms. They have everything they need to eat. They are starving them the way the Nazis starved the Jews.”

“But we will not break. I am filled with even greater determination to free our captive sons, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel,” he added. 

The prime minister also spoke with the head of delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the region, Julien Lerisson, and asked for his “involvement in the immediate providing of food and medical care to our hostages.”

The prime minister told Mr. Lerisson that Hamas’s “starvation libel is reverberating around the world, while systematic starvation is carried out against our hostages, who are being subjected to inhumane physical and mental abuse. The world cannot remain indifferent to the shocking images which are reminiscent of Nazi atrocities.” 

Hamas’s military spokesman, Abu Obeidah, responded Mr. Netanyahu’s demand, saying the terror group is “ready to engage positively and respond to any request from the Red Cross to bring food and medicine to enemy captives,” referring to the hostages. 

Yet the hostages will only receive help from the Red Cross if Israel permanently opens a humanitarian corridor for aid and halts airstrikes in areas where aid is distributed. 

Israel has already created humanitarian corridors that are open between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. every day.  

The amount of aid entering Gaza also vastly improved in the past week: More than 23,000 tons of humanitarian aid entered Gaza and 1,200 trucks were collected by the UN and international organizations. 

Western and Arab nations also continued to airdrop aid over the enclave. But the UN has warned repeatedly that airdropping aid is unsafe and ineffective. 

Israeli media meanwhile reported that Mr. Netanyahu is expected to expand the military operations in Gaza to free the hostages as he assesses that Hamas is not interested in a cease-fire. 

The Hostage Forum in Israel released a statement following the media reports, saying, “Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to doom. Netanyahu is preparing the largest possible scam. His talking points about releasing the hostages while claiming victory (in Gaza) have been made repeatedly, deceiving the public.”