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OPINION:
Reports of starvation in the Gaza Strip have made headlines in recent weeks, with Western governments expressing outrage and demanding immediate action from Israel.
A coordinated effort has emerged across Palestinian, Arab and international media platforms seeking to pressure Israel diplomatically by distorting the genuine hardship faced by the Palestinian population of Gaza. Yet the difficulties in Gaza stem largely from failures on the part of Hamas and international aid organizations in the distribution of food and aid supplies.
The primary goal of this campaign is to establish the narrative that Israel is deliberately starving civilians. Still, a closer examination reveals that it may be less about the genuine availability of food and more about achieving strategic objectives that ultimately serve Hamas’ interests.
The starvation campaign serves multiple purposes for Hamas. It absolves the terrorist organization of responsibility for civilian suffering while shifting blame entirely to Israel. It diverts attention from Hamas’ role in blocking hostage negotiations and maintaining the conflict.
It also creates cover for Hamas to rebuild its capabilities under the cover of humanitarian aid and lulls in the fighting.
The situation in Gaza is undoubtedly difficult, but the evidence suggests a more complex reality than the starvation story allows. Perhaps the most recent public example is The New York Times’ publication of a photo of an emaciated boy in Gaza, a picture meant to illustrate the starvation narrative and then issued a brief editor’s note after it became known that the child had cerebral palsy and other genetic conditions that contributed to his dire appearance.
The media’s failure to conduct independent verification of Hamas’ claims, compounded by the West’s reaction to the starvation narrative, provided enough international pressure on Israel to allow Hamas to refuse to negotiate a deal to release the hostages abducted by terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. At the same time, Hamas is genuinely starving these hostages as it broadcast to the world in its video of a skeletal Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave.
As for the civilians who live in the Gaza Strip, though it’s unclear to what extent food is being distributed to the civilian population, it is arriving. Hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza in one week alone, coordinated through United Nations agencies. Israel has also facilitated airdropping aid pallets with flour, sugar and canned goods supplied by a large number of Western and Arab countries.
Since May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which manages an aid distribution mechanism designed to prevent looting and block Hamas from taking over aid convoys, has delivered more than 90 million meals.
Hamas has tried to obstruct the foundation’s work, perhaps out of fear that allowing food distribution from other organizations will ultimately loosen Hamas’ grip on the population of Gaza. Hamas warned residents not to cooperate and urged journalists not to share photos of aid deliveries. On July 3, Hamas’ Interior Ministry posted a warning on its official Facebook page urging Gaza residents to avoid any direct or indirect cooperation with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It claimed the centers were not designed to alleviate hardship but rather to serve as places of humiliation and abuse, and threatened legal action against anyone violating the injunction. A Hamas statement from June 8 claimed that the foundation’s aid centers aim to replace the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and encourage Gaza emigration.
Some Palestinians in Gaza have taken to Facebook and X to blame Hamas for the crisis. They claim Hamas is seizing aid and reselling it in Gaza’s markets. Others allege that residents are selling aid packages for profit. One Gaza journalist accused local merchants of exploiting the situation to hike prices, and other posts show Hamas operatives inside Gaza’s tunnels enjoying an abundance of food and boasting about their supplies.
It’s unclear whether there are people in Gaza who suffer from hunger from time to time, but the campaign to discredit Israel has succeeded in shaping international perceptions. Regardless of how many airdrops are made, the damage to Israel’s image has been done.
The campaign’s success enables Hamas to continue using civilian suffering as a strategic asset even as it denies food to its Israeli hostages and obstructs the aid distribution that could alleviate that suffering.
More fundamentally, it reveals troubling dynamics regarding the ways international opinion is shaped during conflicts. The narrative has taken hold regardless of reality on the ground, demonstrating how effective messaging can override factual reporting. Western governments’ immediate acceptance of the starvation allegations, without apparent verification, suggests a concerning susceptibility to information warfare.
The starvation narrative may resonate powerfully in Western capitals, but its primary beneficiary is the terrorist group Hamas, which must bear the blame for the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population.
• Maj. Avi Tal (reserves) is a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. He is a graduate of Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces’ elite intelligence unit. He previously served in the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories as an adviser on Arab affairs. He also spent more than a decade as a senior researcher on Palestinian affairs at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
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