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Shawarma, Smoothies And … Starvation? New York Times Prints Most Contradictory Gaza Claims Yet
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Is it possible for a population to be starving while people eat a hot chicken shawarma topped with homemade garlic sauce?
If you’re a New York Times journalist, then the answer is absolutely.
In “Coffee, Juice, Shawarma: Tiny Traces of Normal Life in a Ruined Gaza,” the Times attempts to showcase life in the Gaza Strip, where it says most residents are “struggling just to survive Israel’s assault on Hamas,” with experts predicting “imminent” famine.
But then the article takes an oddly contradictory turn, painting a strikingly different picture of Gaza life: one of long lines at Chef Warif, a well-known eatery in northern Gaza, where customers queue for “Syrian-style shawarma sandwiches” wrapped in flatbread and topped with the restaurant’s signature garlic sauce.
Chef Warif, located in Gaza City — the same northern area repeatedly described by the publication as on the brink of famine — is thriving. This is the region where, according to recent New York Times eports like “In Northern Gaza, Hunger Looms Over Daily Existence’ and ‘U.N.-Backed Panel Warns Action Needed in Days to Avert Gaza Famine,” even milk and water are in desperately short supply.
And yet, The New York Times now paints a picture of families queueing up for shawarma, not survival.
Welcome to the @nytimes’ Gaza—a place where people can be simultaneously “starving under a near-total siege” yet somehow still lining up for shawarma in flatbread, complete with signature garlic sauce. Their main gripe? The meat is from frozen.
The NYT mentions “hopelessly… https://t.co/F8i2rpCLuf pic.twitter.com/5JdXD9gU1f
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 18, 2024
The New York Times notes the restaurant owner is forced to buy meat “frozen and at steep prices from traders importing it to the Gaza Strip,” which raises the question: why is food so expensive in Gaza when humanitarian aid is entering the territory daily?
And, if frozen meat is being imported, why is Israel being accused of preventing goods from crossing the border?
On November 18 — the same day this piece was published — 137 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza, and over 800 trucks are queued at the border, awaiting pickup by international organizations for distribution.
The real reason for skyrocketing food prices? Hamas.
Since the start of the war, Hamas has stolen vast quantities of humanitarian aid, hoarding it and selling it at grossly inflated prices.
This isn’t speculation; even The New York Times has previously reported how “Hamas has stolen, or tried to steal, aid shipments for its own use,” with accounts of terrorists shooting and beating Palestinians who attempt to take food supplies.
But in this piece, The New York Times conveniently glosses over these facts, indulging instead in contradictions.
On one hand, we’re told that Gaza’s streets are strewn with “rotting carcasses of horses and dogs,” with the “ground slick with sewage.” Yet just a few sentences later, we’re introduced to a city center where Palestinians sit under “shady trees,” sipping “freshly squeezed mango juice or avocado smoothies,” and chatting over coffee.
The article also insists that Gaza is “starving under a near-total Israeli siege” that has “blocked all but a dribble of aid and commercial supplies.”
Yet somehow, “Zain’s dessert stand” is bustling, with families lining up for sweet treats. How does a territory described as under “near-total siege” sustain booming dessert sales?
These contradictions highlight the broader issue with the New York Times’ reporting. This is the same outlet that repeatedly accuses the IDF of using Palestinians as “human shields,” but refuses to apply the same term to Hamas, despite extensive evidence — even from Palestinians themselves — that Hamas embeds within civilian infrastructure.
It’s also the same New York Times that produced a flashy interactive feature to demonstrate an apartheid-style inequality on Israel’s road network, but couldn’t spare a ballistics expert to verify dubious X-rays allegedly proving the IDF is shooting Palestinian children in the head. (Fact check, they’re not).
The New York Times’ well-known tagline, “All the News That’s Fit to Print” might be better rewritten as “All the News That Fits Our Narrative.”
And that narrative? As nuanced as ever: “Israel bad, Palestinians good.”
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Shawarma, Smoothies And … Starvation? New York Times Prints Most Contradictory Gaza Claims Yet 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.