Israel tries to deflect blame for widespread starvation in Gaza
As dozens of governments, UN organisations and other international figures have detailed Israel's culpability, officials and ministers in Israel have attempted to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, that if hunger exists it is not Israel's fault, or to blame Hamas or the UN and aid organisations for problems with distribution of aid.
The Israeli effort has continued even as one of its own government ministers, the far-right heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu, made comments this week describing an unapologetic policy of starvation, genocide and ethnic cleansing which Israel has suggested is not official policy.
Amid evidence of a growing number of deaths from starvation in Gaza including children, and shocking images and accounts of malnutrition, Israel has tried to deflect blame for what has been described by the head of the World Health Organization as 'man-made mass starvation'.
That view was endorsed by a joint statement this week by 28 countries – including the UK – which explicitly blamed Israel.
'The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,' the statement said. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazan's of human dignity.
'We condemn the drip-feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.'
Some Israeli officials have been marginally more cautious in public statements, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has promised vaguely that there 'will be no starvation' in Gaza.
But a recent off-the-record briefing for journalists by a senior Israeli security official has pushed a more uncompromising position, stating that there 'is no hunger in Gaza' and claiming that images of starving children on front pages around the world showed children with 'underlying diseases'.
David Mencer, an Israeli government spokesperson, told Sky news this week: 'There is no famine in Gaza – there is a famine of the truth.'
Contradicting that claim, Médecins Sans Frontières said that a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the UN said one in five children in Gaza City were suffering from malnutrition.
Israel's attempts to deflect blame, however, are undermined by its single and overarching responsibility: that, as an occupying power in a conflict, it is legally obliged to ensure the provision of means of life for those under occupation.
And while Israel has consistently tried to blame Hamas for intercepting food aid, that claim has been undermined by a leaked US assessment seen by Reuters which found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas of US-funded humanitarian supplies.
Examining 156 incidents of theft or loss of US-funded supplies reported by US aid partner organisations between October 2023 and May 2025, it said it found 'no reports alleging Hamas' benefited from US-funded supplies.
Israel has also recently intensified efforts to blame the UN for the problems with aid distribution, citing a 'lack of cooperation from the international community and international organisations'.
Israel's claims are contradicted by clear evidence of its efforts to undermine aid distribution.
Despite international warnings of the humanitarian risks posed by banning Unrwa, the main UN agency for Palestinians and the organisation with the most experience in Gaza, from Israel, its operations were closed down, complicating aid efforts.
Instead Israel, backed by the US, has relied on the private, inexperienced and controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose sites have been the focus of numerous mass casualty incidents, where desperate Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers.
And Israel's efforts to hamper with aid efforts have continued. Last week it said it would not renew the work visa of Jonathan Whitall, the most senior UN aid official in Gaza; and a UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told reporters on Thursday that Israel had rejected eight of the 16 UN requests to transport humanitarian aid in Gaza the previous day.
He added that two other requests, initially approved, led to staff facing obstruction on the ground as he described a pattern of 'bureaucratic, logistical, administrative and other operational obstacles imposed by Israeli authorities'.
All of which has injected a new sense of urgency into the catastrophe in Gaza as UN agencies warned that they were on the brink of running out of specialised food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children.
'Most malnutrition treatment supplies have been consumed and what is left at facilities will run out very soon if not replenished,' a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Thursday.
More starvation deaths appear inevitable.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Leader Live
13 minutes ago
- Leader Live
Hezbollah threatens to resume firing at Israel if it intensifies Lebanon action
Naim Kassem's comments came as Lebanon's Cabinet was meeting to discuss Hezbollah's disarmament. Beirut is under US pressure to disarm the group that recently fought a 14-month war with Israel and was left gravely weakened, with many of its political and military leaders dead. Since the war ended in November with a US-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss its disarmament until Israel withdraws from five hills it controls inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes that have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members. Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities. Israel's military has said the five locations in Lebanon provide vantage points or are located across from communities in northern Israel, where about 60,000 Israelis were displaced during the war. Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one attack on a disputed area along the border. In a televised speech on Tuesday, Kassem said Hezbollah rejects any timetable to hand over its weapons. 'Israel's interest is not to widen the aggression because if they expand, the resistance will defend, the army will defend and the people will defend,' he said. 'This defence will lead to the fall of missiles inside Israel.' Since the war ended, Hezbollah has withdrawn most of its fighters and weapons from the area along the border with Israel south of the Litani river. Last week, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reiterated calls for Hezbollah to give up its weapons, angering the group's leadership. The ceasefire agreement left vague how Hezbollah's weapons and military facilities north of the Litani river should be treated, saying Lebanese authorities should dismantle unauthorised facilities starting with the area south of the river. Hezbollah maintains the deal covers only the area south of the Litani, while Israel and the US say it mandates disarmament of the group throughout Lebanon. Kassem said Hezbollah rejects a government vote over its weapons, saying such a decision should be unanimously backed by all Lebanese. 'No one can deprive Lebanon of its force to protect its sovereignty,' Kassem said. Hezbollah's weapons are a divisive issue among Lebanese, with some groups calling for its disarmament. The Israel-Hezbollah war started a day after the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack against Israel from Gaza. It left more than 4,000 people dead and caused 11 billion dollars (£8.3 billion) of damage.
Glasgow Times
13 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Hezbollah threatens to resume firing at Israel if it intensifies Lebanon action
Naim Kassem's comments came as Lebanon's Cabinet was meeting to discuss Hezbollah's disarmament. Beirut is under US pressure to disarm the group that recently fought a 14-month war with Israel and was left gravely weakened, with many of its political and military leaders dead. Since the war ended in November with a US-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss its disarmament until Israel withdraws from five hills it controls inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes that have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members. Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities. Israel's military has said the five locations in Lebanon provide vantage points or are located across from communities in northern Israel, where about 60,000 Israelis were displaced during the war. Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one attack on a disputed area along the border. In a televised speech on Tuesday, Kassem said Hezbollah rejects any timetable to hand over its weapons. 'Israel's interest is not to widen the aggression because if they expand, the resistance will defend, the army will defend and the people will defend,' he said. 'This defence will lead to the fall of missiles inside Israel.' Since the war ended, Hezbollah has withdrawn most of its fighters and weapons from the area along the border with Israel south of the Litani river. Last week, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reiterated calls for Hezbollah to give up its weapons, angering the group's leadership. The ceasefire agreement left vague how Hezbollah's weapons and military facilities north of the Litani river should be treated, saying Lebanese authorities should dismantle unauthorised facilities starting with the area south of the river. Hezbollah maintains the deal covers only the area south of the Litani, while Israel and the US say it mandates disarmament of the group throughout Lebanon. Kassem said Hezbollah rejects a government vote over its weapons, saying such a decision should be unanimously backed by all Lebanese. 'No one can deprive Lebanon of its force to protect its sovereignty,' Kassem said. Hezbollah's weapons are a divisive issue among Lebanese, with some groups calling for its disarmament. The Israel-Hezbollah war started a day after the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack against Israel from Gaza. It left more than 4,000 people dead and caused 11 billion dollars (£8.3 billion) of damage.
Reuters
14 minutes ago
- Reuters
German hesitation on Gaza could encourage atrocities, Israeli academics say
BERLIN, Aug 5 (Reuters) - More than 100 Israeli academics have warned in a letter that a failure by Germany to put pressure on Israel could lead to new atrocities in Gaza. "Further hesitation on Germany's part threatens to enable new atrocities - and undermines the lessons learnt from its own history," the academics wrote in the letter, addressed to senior Social Democrat (SPD) lawmakers Rolf Muetzenich and Adis Ahmetovic and seen by Reuters on Tuesday. On July 22, the two men, whose party is in the ruling coalition, had called for Germany to join an international coalition pushing for an immediate end to the war in Gaza, sanctions against Israel and a suspension of weapons deliveries. The German government - comprising the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the SPD - has sharpened its criticism of Israel over the manmade humanitarian catastrophe visited on Gaza's 2 million people, but has yet to announce any major policy change. Israel denies having a policy of starvation in Gaza, and says the Hamas militant group, responsible for an operation that killed 1,200 people in Israel in October 2023 and took hundreds more hostage, could end the crisis by surrendering. Critics argue that Germany's response to the war has been overly cautious, mostly owing to an enduring sense of guilt for the Nazi Holocaust, weakening the West's collective ability to put pressure on Israel. "If over 100 Israeli academics are calling for an immediate change of course ... then it's high time we took visible action," Ahmetovic told the public broadcaster ARD. Britain, Canada and France have signalled their readiness to recognise a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territory at the United Nations General Assembly this September.
