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Claims of ‘Genocide’ and Intentional Starvation Are Used to Wage War Against Israel

Parcels of humanitarian aid await transfer into Gaza, at the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the Gaza Strip, July 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

On Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. But as usual, it was another bogus report relying on information from Hamas. One of its members, Sara Brown, even said that the Association ignored its standard practice of holding a debate and simply pushed through the resolution instead.

This should come as no surprise after the UN-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared earlier there was a famine in Gaza. Consequently, newspapers screamed of the “humanitarian disaster” gripping Gaza.

There’s only one problem. Like the genocide report, it wasn’t true.

By the IPC’s own definition, famine requires three conditions:

  1. More than 20% of households facing extreme food gaps.
  2. More than 30% of children suffering acute malnutrition.
  3. Two starvation-related deaths per 10,000 people, per day.

That is the threshold used in South Sudan, Sudan, and Somalia. Even Yemen, despite catastrophic hunger there, has never been declared in famine because it didn’t cross that line. Gaza meets none of those criteria, even according to the IPC, using Hamas figures.

Yet, suddenly, the bar was lowered — using a “special additional protocol” rarely, if ever, invoked in previous famine declarations.

This isn’t the first time that the IPC has sounded warnings. It projected imminent famine in Gaza three times before — in May, June, and November 2024 — only to quietly walk it back. Now, in August 2025, it finally got its headline — by rewriting the rules. 

The IPC’s findings rest on partial, unreliable sources — most tied to Hamas — while ignoring the vast humanitarian efforts made by Israel and international partners. Since Hamas launched its war on October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have facilitated more than 100,000 trucks that have carried nearly two million tonnes of aid into Gaza. That’s about a ton for every man, woman, and child. As of recent weeks, experts counting the amount of food entering Gaza say more than enough has been sent to feed every single Gazan adequately — if it isn’t stolen by armed gangs first.

None of that counts, apparently. What counts are Hamas’ talking points.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António Guterres thundered that this was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity.” The UN’s top humanitarian officer, Tom Fletcher, called it “irrefutable testimony.”

But here are some inconvenient reminders: No UN resolution has ever explicitly condemned Hamas for the October 7 massacre. And Fletcher himself once claimed 14,000 babies would die within 48 hours — a grotesque falsehood that he was eventually forced to walk back. These are the arbiters of “irrefutable testimony”? Their own record is already refutable.

And in all their moral outrage, one word is conspicuously absent: Hamas — the terror group responsible for every ounce of Gaza’s suffering.

It seems surreal that the words of a death-cult terror group are treated as fact, while the statements of a democracy like Israel are dismissed. But this pattern is familiar.

On October 17, 2023, Hamas claimed Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing 500. Within minutes, the story spread worldwide. It was a lie. A misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad had struck the carpark, not the hospital itself — killing dozens, not hundreds. By the time the truth emerged, Israel had already been condemned.

These lies have continued throughout the last two years.

Even Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned the media, after being praised by Hamas for his “courage” in his planned recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state, that “Hamas will engage in propaganda.” 

These are wise words, so it begs the question: why has Albanese echoed Hamas’ talking points in his repeated criticisms of Israel since the war began?

Yes, there is hardship and suffering in Gaza — sometimes severe. But to blame Israel and ignore the party that started and caused this war is to ignore reality.

Hamas began this war. Hamas steals the aid. The UN’s own figures show that 90% of aid trucks are looted.

Hamas starves its own people to manufacture global outrage. The only people being deliberately starved are the Israeli hostages, wasting away in Hamas’ tunnels, denied food, denied water, and denied hope.

The IPC wants its report to be taken seriously, but it is not a serious report. It is tainted with lies, bias, and outright fabrications. And as if this isn’t enough, one of the authors of the report, Andy Seal, was already accusing Israel of genocide in October 2023, and expressing tacit support for Hamas.

In response to a video of Hamas official Ghazi Hamad saying they’ll repeat the October 7 massacre until Israel is annihilated, Seal defended Hamas, writing: “One side is committing genocide and the other isn’t … do you really expect an oppressed people to stop fighting? Let’s be real.”

So let’s be real indeed. At the moment, we are living in an Orwellian nightmare — our own modern 1984. A world where lies aren’t just told, they are rewarded. Where famine is declared where there is none. And where the real war is against the truth.

Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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