RSS
Israel’s Policy in Gaza Is the Opposite of the ‘Deliberate Starvation’ Lie
Israeli military vehicles move near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in southern Israel, Dec. 31, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
It has been more than 100 days since thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and launched an unprovoked genocidal pogrom on Israeli civilians — brutally raping, torturing, and murdering more than 1,200 men, women, and children in the most cruel depraved barbaric ways, as well as kidnapping more than 240 people.
It was the darkest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel, as is its right and its duty, responded to the attack and took the fight to the Hamas terrorists, giving meaning to the words “Never Again.”
But as soon as Israel fought back against those who wanted a genocide of the Jews, the world began to predictably demand Israel show restraint — even as Hamas vowed to carry out more October 7 style massacres and even as they continue to fire rockets into Israel.
Within weeks, many people completely forgot about October 7, as if it somehow never happened, and began focusing exclusively on the plight of Gazan civilians, brushing aside the thousands of dead and injured and kidnapped Israelis as well as the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who remain refugees in their own country after they were forced to leave their homes due to the dangers of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks.
Israel, despite being the victim of the heinous attack, was somehow accused of being responsible for all the misery that had now befallen Gaza. There was no mention of the fact that the vast majority of civilians in Gaza had always supported Hamas’ rule, which had always included terror attacks against Israelis and promises to murder Jews.
In a series of malicious lies, Israel was accused of deliberately targeting civilians, starving the population, denying them water and electricity, and destroying their homes.
South Africa, despite having one of the highest murder rates in the world and an increasing inability to even reliably supply electricity to its own population, still found the time and resources to effectively act as Hamas’ lawyers, dragging Israel before the International Court of Justice to answer patently absurd charges of “genocide” in Gaza.
South Africa and others who make such factually nonsensical claims insist that Israel is deliberately starving the people of Gaza by denying them the “means of life.” They usually cite, as evidence, a phrase uttered by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, in which, describing the plans to pressure Hamas to release the hostages, Gallant said, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”
Yet it is self-evident that this has not been Israel’s actual policy — huge amounts of food, water, and fuel have been entering Gaza, with Israel’s active assistance, over the past 100 days of war.
Between October 7 and mid-January, more than 130,000 tons of humanitarian aid carried by 8,621 trucks had entered the Gaza Strip — most of this food, but also many tons of medical supplies and other essentials. On January 14 alone, 237 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza — the single largest amount since the beginning of the war.
These included tankers with cooking oil and fuel for the operation of generators for essential infrastructure services, such as hospitals, sewage treatment plants, and water pumps.
While Israel initially cut off the water it supplied to Gaza — which only amounted to 8% of Gaza’s total consumption before the war — it began resuming such water supplies to Gaza on Oct. 15. Israel has also facilitated successful repairs of vital water infrastructure, including fixing water pipes that Hamas itself destroyed.
In addition to this, field hospitals have been set up and are expected to be operational in the coming days.
Israel has also continually implemented daily pauses in its military operations between 10:00 and 14:00 to facilitate and enable movement of humanitarian aid and allow Gazan residents to replenish their supplies of food and water.
It’s important to note that Israel has placed absolutely no upper limit on humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, only requiring that all aid trucks be inspected. If there are shortages of essentials in Gaza, it is because humanitarian organizations themselves have been unable to keep up with the aid demand or are failing to distribute it effectively.
Despite the narrative being spun by many that Israel is preventing aid from entering Gaza, the real truth is the opposite. Israel, rather than targeting civilians, has done everything it can reasonably be expected to, and more, to try to help the Palestinian population while also fighting a deadly war under indescribably difficult conditions — including Hamas’ all-encompassing efforts to intertwine all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure with its military machine.
It therefore seems truly astonishing that pressure is constantly placed on Israel to fix Gaza’s humanitarian situation, while no demands are ever made of Hamas, the actual terrorist organization that initiated this war, which continues to steal aid, uses civilians as human shields, and currently holds 136 hostages — many of whom have been murdered.
The uncomfortable reality is that the world has funded Hamas’ terror state, and instead of electricity plants and desalination plants and educational institutions and engineering schools, the money and materials received were used to build over 500 kilometers of underground tunnels and command structures under hospitals, and establish an armory of thousands and thousands of military weapons and rockets that were used for terror attacks.
How could all that aid be so blatantly abused? It’s a question that the world should demand answers to from Hamas, not Israel.
Perhaps the Hamas billionaire leaders sitting in luxury hotels in Qatar might be able to answer it.
Justin Amler is a Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
The post Israel’s Policy in Gaza Is the Opposite of the ‘Deliberate Starvation’ Lie first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency

The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
RSS
Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation

Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
RSS
Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack

A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.