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CNN Uses Gaza ‘Famine’ Myth to Slander Israel
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Is there an imminent famine in Gaza?
How CNN has covered this story over the last four months is illuminating, but not in the sense of discovering the facts. Rather, CNN’s coverage illustrates just how the network is leaving its audience both uninformed and misinformed.
Consider the case of a series of four reports produced by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) network, a collection of various governmental and non-governmental organizations, on the state of food security in the Gaza Strip. Then consider how CNN covered each report.
The first report came in March, in which the IPC Famine Review Committee (FRC) claimed “[f]amine is now projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza Governates and is expected to become manifest during the projection period from mid-March 2024 to May 2024.”
The second report, dated May 31, came from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), a USAID creation and IPC partner, which purported to conduct an “IPC-compatible analysis.” This report claimed that “it is possible, if not likely, that all three IPC thresholds for Famine (food consumption, acute malnutrition, and mortality) were met or surpassed in northern Gaza in April.”
The third report, published June 4, contradicted this.
Authored by the Famine Review Committee, this report was a review of the FEWS NET claim that famine was already happening. According to the FRC, the FEWS NET analysis was deeply flawed, using questionable methodology and incomplete data. In short, the analysis did not include an enormous amount of food flowing into Gaza Strip via commercial deliveries and even via the World Food Programme. As the FRC wrote:
While FEWS NET estimated the caloric availability in the area as covering only 59-63% of the needs (based uniquely on Humanitarian Food Assistance) in April, the review done by the FRC estimates that this range would be 75% to 109% if commercial and/or privately contracted food deliveries were included (157% if a higher estimate was used).
As brilliantly summed up by Seth Mandel at Commentary: “The methodology behind measuring Palestinian suffering, then, is: If you only count some of the food Gazans are eating, Gazans are not eating enough food.”
The final relevant report, dated June 25, is another FRC report of a similar nature to the one from March. It begins with the sentence: “Following the publication of the second FRC report on 18 March 2024, which projected that a Famine would occur in the most likely scenario, a number of important developments occurred.”
In short, the FRC backtracked. The “imminent” famine never happened, and they don’t claim one is “imminent” now.
So how did CNN cover each of these developments?
In March, with the first report, the network treated it as a bombshell development that a “famine” was “imminent” in Gaza, with headlines screaming: “Famine in northern Gaza is imminent as more than 1 million people face ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger, new report warns” (Helen Regan, Niamh Kennedy, and Louis Mian, Mar. 19, 2024).
CNN also reported on the May 31 FEWS NET report, writing in its headline, “Famine ‘possible, if not likely’ to be underway in northern Gaza, expert group warns” (Duarte Mendonca and Alex Stambaugh, Jun. 5, 2024).
Notably, this article was published after the FRC published its review of the serious flaws in the FEWS NET report, and yet the article does not mention it.
Indeed, as far as I can find, at no point in any article did CNN ever mention the FRC review casting serious doubt on the credibility of the FEWS NET claim that famine was “likely to be underway.”
After skipping mention of the June 5 FRC review, the network deemed the FRC’s analysis worth mention again with the publication of the June 25 report, which a CNN article flatly lies about.
Rather than inform the audience that the FRC has backtracked and no longer believes famine is “imminent,” a total of eight CNN reporters make the false claim that the June 25 report said “almost all of Gaza will face famine within the next three months.” (“Children are dying of starvation in their parents’ arms as famine spreads through Gaza,” by Abdel Qadder Sabbah, Mohammad Al Sawalhi, Tareq El Helou, Kareem Khadder, Sana Noor Haq, Paula Hancocks, Jo Shelley, and Byron Blunt, Jun. 26 2024) [emphasis added].
The report, of course, said no such thing. It said there is a risk of famine, but not that famine will happen.
Those who get their news from CNN are thus left with both an incomplete and an erroneous understanding of what is happening.
On the one hand, they’re left uninformed that the analyses claiming famine was already likely happening have been discredited. On the other hand, they’re being blatantly lied to about what the IPC wrote in its June 25 report. Both work to leave the audience with the false impression that there is a famine in Gaza.
What these CNN journalists are choosing to tell the audience and what to keep to themselves on this subject is revealing, further evidencing the anti-Israel bias that is degrading the network’s credibility.
David M. Litman is a Research Analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).
The post CNN Uses Gaza ‘Famine’ Myth to Slander Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.
