OPINION:
Earlier this month, a top United Nations official claimed 14,000 Palestinian infants were going to die “in the next 48 hours” unless humanitarian aid trucks were allowed into the Gaza Strip. “It’s chilling. It’s utterly chilling,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher told BBC Radio.
The dramatic assertion circulated widely throughout the media, as if it were true — until someone checked. Turns out, it wasn’t. In an article, the BBC clarified that Mr. Fletcher drew the figures from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
This group, composed of governmental and non-governmental aid organizations, estimated in a report that some 14,100 “severe cases” of malnutrition were likely among children in Gaza between April 2025 and March 2026 — if conditions persist.
That’s a year, not 48 hours. Despite the correction, misinformation continues to spread.
Conditions have also changed for the better. Israel resumed aid to Gaza on May 19, lifting the moratorium imposed after Hamas broke multiple ceasefire agreements. The Jewish state decided to halt aid in March to pressure the terrorist organization into releasing the remaining living hostages out of the 251 who were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023.
Despite this, more than 1.3 million tons of humanitarian aid had already been delivered to Palestinian civilians, primarily by Israel. The outrage at the aid stoppage was immediate and predictable. But the problem is that the aid often never reaches the civilians who need it. The Hamas government, which Palestinians overwhelmingly chose in 2006, steals what’s trucked in.
“The humanitarian aid has been Hamas’ main financial pipeline,” Eylon Levy, a former spokesman for the state of Israel, told Al Arabiya English earlier this month. “That is how Hamas is surviving. Recently it hasn’t been able to pay its soldiers because it hasn’t been able to tax the goods.”
What’s more, Gaza had received enough supplies prior to the shipment pause to sustain its people through the period. The Hamas propaganda machine has hijacked international concern by plastering photos of what appear to be emaciated Palestinian children across social media. These have turned out to be pediatric cancer patients, not starvation victims.
Leftists don’t care about the details. They’ve rallied to the cause of Palestinians not out of a genuine humanitarian impulse, but because the idea of Jews having a state of their own is intolerable to them. That’s why they’re not really concerned about the hostage situation or the failure of the Hamas government to take care of its own people.
Israel is still trying to ensure food aid trucks reach the people for whom they are intended, but on Wednesday new reports of relief trucks being raided surfaced. Overall, however, the situation is improving, according to Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. “There were lines of people that got food which was not stolen by Hamas,” he told Reuters. “The manner in which it was distributed is effective so far.”
Wednesday marked 600 days of captivity for the living hostages still held by Hamas. Israel estimates that number at just 20. The world’s focus should be on returning these individuals to their homes. Hamas’ public relations machine is betting on the left’s willingness to pin atrocities on the Jews to make everyone forget why Israel is doing what it’s doing in Gaza.
The United States should continue supporting Israeli efforts to get its people back.
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