The visit, to inspect food-distribution sites and meet with locals, reflects a new sense urgency after cease-fire talks go nowhere.

Steve Witkoff, the United States special envoy to the Middle East, visited a controversial US-backed aid distribution site in Gaza on Friday, where hundreds of Palestinians have died in recent weeks as they try to access what little food has entered the enclave.

CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Aug 1 (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.