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The ‘Gaza Famine’ Myth
Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid make their way to the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, May 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
JNS.org – It’s now quite clear that there are simply no facts at all—none—that will alter the fixed narrative of lies, distortions and blood libels with which the liberal internationalist order is demonizing and delegitimizing Israel.
The claim that Israel is starving the civilians of Gaza and causing an imminent famine has been pumped out incessantly since soon after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.
In February, the United Nations said that more than a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were “estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation” and that, without action, widespread famine was “almost inevitable.”
In March, Biden administration officials told Benny Gantz—then a member of Israel’s war cabinet who was visiting Washington, D.C.—that the “food shortage crisis” impacting Palestinians in Gaza was “intolerable.”
At the end of that month, Janti Soeripto, president and chief executive of Save the Children US, declared that famine and starvation in Gaza were already happening.
In May, Director of the World Food Program Cindy McCain said that parts of Gaza were experiencing a “full-blown famine” that was rapidly spreading throughout the territory.
Also last month, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on the grounds that Israel was “causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
The world has brushed aside Israel’s repeated protests that there has been no shortage of food trucks arriving with aid for Gaza and that the problem lay instead with distribution because Hamas was stealing the supplies.
Instead, the liberal international establishment has repeatedly demanded that Israel immediately stop the war, thus inescapably surrendering to Hamas and forfeiting the military leverage required to free the remaining hostages.
Yet now, the famine claims have been debunked.
The Famine Review Committee (FRC) conducts investigations into world hunger on behalf of a partnership formed between governments, international organizations and NGOs.
In March, the committee reported that “famine is now projected and imminent” in northern Gaza and was expected to take hold before the end of May. Preventing such a famine, it stated, required “an immediate political decision for a ceasefire together with a significant and immediate increase in humanitarian and commercial access to the entire population of Gaza.”
In April, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), a food security monitoring initiative founded in 1985 by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), went even further by stating there was “reasonable evidence” that, since April, northern Gaza had been experiencing a famine and this would persist at least until the end of July.
But on June 4, the Famine Review Committee published a report in which it rejected the FEWS NET analysis as not “plausible” and said it could not endorse its famine projection.
The committee said there was a lack of reliable evidence about the number of trucks entering Gaza and the level of humanitarian assistance that was arriving and being distributed around its various areas.
In order to compensate for these gaps in the data, it said, FEWS NET had relied on “multiple layers of assumptions and inference” about food availability and access as well as nutritional status and mortality, and had made “deliberate choices over assumptions, without the necessary supporting evidence.”
Such assumptions, said the committee, had ignored or underestimated the value of both commercial sources of food and certain forms of humanitarian aid.
Although this didn’t alter the fact that Gaza was experiencing “extreme human suffering” and that urgent measures were needed to boost humanitarian supplies, the committee concluded that flows of aid and the availability of food had increased significantly in March and April and “that nearly 100 percent of daily kilocalorie requirements were available for the estimated population of 300,000 people in April, even using conservative calculations.”
In other words, the committee reversed its own dire predictions and damned the famine early warning network for excluding evidence that gave the lie to its anti-Israel narrative. The categorical declarations of imminent famine being caused by wicked, heartless, war-criminal Israel just weren’t true.
It’s worth remembering that USAID, the parent body of FEWS NET, is run by Samantha Power, who served as US ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration.
In 2002, Power suggested in a “thought experiment” that America might have to invade Israel to prevent an Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. She also suggested that the only people who might be alienated by this would be American Jews, who she said exercised tremendous political and financial power over America.
Other research has also exploded the “Gaza famine” claims. At Columbia University, two professors have said the evidence shows that sufficient amounts of food are being supplied to Gaza.
They told The Jerusalem Post that it was “a myth that Israel is responsible for famine in Gaza” and suggested that the International Criminal Court and UN had joined Hamas in blaming Israel for a “famine that never was, hoping to stop the war.”
Yet there are no signs that these rebuttals of the “Gaza famine” claim are having any effect on the Israel-bashing crowd. A few days ago, The New York Times was still referring to “starving civilians” and blaming deaths from malnutrition on “restrictions on aid and commercial goods entering Gaza.”
BBC News reported this week that “warnings of famine are looming once again in northern Gaza,” broadcasting distressing footage of infants said to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition caused by restrictions on aid at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings.
Other than Fox News, it seems that no mainstream media outlet has reported the Famine Review Committee’s findings that the claim of famine in Gaza cannot be justified. Nor have the anti-Israel humanitarian organizations, although the World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has now subtly adjusted his rhetoric by talking about “famine-like conditions.”
Famine is not the only anti-Israel falsehood whose debunking has been ignored. The mainstream media and humanitarian crowd are still using the Hamas figure of 37,000-plus civilians killed in Gaza, despite the fact that the UN itself revised its own casualty totals sharply downwards after it emerged that some of the claimed deaths had been drawn from media sources and were fabricated.
Some outlets such as The New York Times, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Time magazine are still claiming that the International Court of Justice said the Palestinians in Gaza faced a “plausible risk of genocide” even though the court said no such thing. As the ICJ President Joan Donoghue herself said, the court decided “that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide. … It didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”
While Israel continues to be defamed by blood libels about famine and its war of self-defense in Gaza, some five million are facing actual famine in Sudan where up to 150,000 have been killed and up to 10 million displaced. Some 25 million are estimated to need humanitarian assistance as a result of a 14-month-long civil war.
Yet this vast and catastrophic scale of human suffering is being almost totally ignored. On Fox News, Hadeel Oueis, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab media outlet Jusoor, said: “Sudanese [people] are asking why the world turns a blind eye as the third-largest country in Africa is laid to waste while at the same time fixating on the smaller conflict in Gaza.”
Good question. The answer is as obvious as it is brutal: The world only cares about suffering humanity when it can blame the Jews. That malevolent prism shapes a fixed and murderous narrative about Israel and the Jewish people that no actual facts can be allowed to disturb.
The post The ‘Gaza Famine’ Myth first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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South Africa Distances Itself From Army Chief’s Pledges of Military, Political Support to Iran
Iranian Major General Amir Hatami and South African General Rudzani Maphwanya meet in Tehran to discuss strengthening military cooperation and strategic ties. Photo: Screenshot
South Africa’s army chief has faced domestic backlash after pledging military and political support to Iran during a recent visit, prompting government officials to distance themselves from his remarks over concerns they could harm Pretoria’s efforts to strengthen ties with the United States.
Members of South Africa’s governing coalition have denounced Gen. Rudzani Maphwanya, chief of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF), for his trip to Tehran earlier this week, describing his remarks as “reckless grandstanding.”
The Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s second-largest party in the governing coalition, has called for Maphwanya to be court-martialed for breaking neutrality and violating military law, saying his comments had gone “beyond military-to-military discussions and entered the realm of foreign policy.”
“This reckless grandstanding comes at a time when South Africa’s relations with key democratic partners, especially the United States, are already under severe strain,” DA defense spokesperson Chris Hattingh said in a statement.
“The SANDF’s job is to lead and manage the defense forces, not to act as an unsanctioned political envoy. Allowing our most senior military officer to make partisan foreign policy pronouncements is strategically reckless, diplomatically irresponsible, and economically self-defeating,” he continued.
“South Africa cannot afford to have its international standing further sabotaged by political adventurism from the military’s top brass,” Hattingh said.
Iran and South Africa held high-level military talks earlier this week as both nations seek to deepen cooperation and strengthen their partnership against what officials called “global arrogance and aggressive colonial approaches.”
During a joint press conference with Iranian Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami, Maphwanya called for deeper ties between the two nations, especially in defense cooperation, affirming that “the Republic of South Africa and the Islamic Republic of Iran have common goals.”
“We always stand alongside the oppressed and defenseless people of the world,” the South African general said.
He also criticized Israel over the ongoing war in Gaza, expressed support for the Palestinian people, and told Iranian officials that his visit “conveys a political message” on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration.
However, shortly after Maphwanya’s remarks drew media attention, the South African government moved to distance itself from his comments, with the Foreign Affairs Ministry stating that his comments “do not represent the government’s official foreign policy stance.”
The Defense Department, which described Maphwanya’s comments as “unfortunate,” confirmed that he is now expected to meet with the Minister of Defense and Military Veterans, Angie Motshekga, upon his return to provide explanations.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, clarified that the president was neither aware of the trip nor had he sanctioned it.
“The visit was ill-advised and more so, the expectation is that the general should have been a lot more circumspect with the comments he makes,” Magwenya told reporters during a press conference on Thursday.
“It is crucial to clarify that the implementation of South Africa’s foreign policy is a function of the presidency,” he continued. “Any statements made by an individual, or a department other than those responsible for foreign policy, should not be misinterpreted as the official position of the South African government.”
Maphwanya’s trip to Iran came after the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI) released a recent report detailing how South Africa’s deepening ties with Tehran have led the country to compromise its democratic foundations and constitutional principles by aligning itself with a regime internationally condemned for terrorism, repression, and human rights abuses.
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Democrat Pete Buttigieg Toughens Stance on Israel, Says He Backs Arms Embargo Following Left-Wing Pressure
Former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks during an appearance on the “Pod Save America” podcast on Aug. 10, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat considered by many observers to be a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has recalibrated his stance on Israel, moving from cautious language to a far more critical position after facing backlash over recent comments on the popular “Pod Save America” podcast.
In his podcast interview on Sunday, Buttigieg called Israel “a friend” and said the United States should “put your arm around” the country during difficult times. He also sidestepped a direct answer on whether the US should recognize a Palestinian state, describing the question as “profound” but offering little elaboration beyond calls for peace.
That measured approach drew sharp criticism from progressives and foreign policy voices who argued that his words were too vague amid the ongoing war in Gaza and a shifting sentiment within the Democratic party base regarding Israel. Evolving fault lines within the Democratic Party over US policy toward its staunch Middle Eastern ally signal that the issue could loom large in the 2028 presidential primary.
Following Sunday’s interview, US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) urged Buttigieg to show “moral clarity,” while Ben Rhodes, former White House aide to President Barack Obama, said he was left uncertain where the Cabinet official stood. Social media critics accused Buttigieg of offering platitudes that dodged hard policy commitments.
In a follow-up interview with Politico published on Thursday, Buttigieg took a decidedly tougher line. He said he supports recognizing a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution and ending the decades-long practice of providing military aid to the Jewish state through sweeping, multi-year packages. Instead, he called for a case-by-case review of assistance, while emphasizing the need to stop civilian deaths, release hostages, and ensure unimpeded humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Perhaps most significantly, Buttigieg indicated support for a US arms embargo on Israel, saying he would have signed on to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s recently proposed resolution to prohibit arms sales to the Jewish state.
The shift places Buttigieg closer to the party’s progressive flank on foreign policy, a notable change for a figure often viewed as a bridge between the Democratic establishment and younger, more liberal voters. For a likely 2028 contender, the move reflects both the political risks of appearing out of step with an increasingly skeptical base and the growing influence of voices calling for sharper limits on US support for Israel.
Recent polling shows a generational divide on the issue, with younger Democrats far more likely to back conditioning aid to Israel and recognizing Palestinian statehood.
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Former Algemeiner Correspondent Gidon Ben-Zvi Dies at 51
Gidon Ben-Zvi. Photo: Screenshot
Gidon Ben-Zvi, former Jerusalem Correspondent for The Algemeiner, has died at the age of 51 after a fight with cancer.
Ben-Zvi continued to write op-eds for The Algemeiner even after he left as a correspondent, including in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
An accomplished writer, Ben-Zvi left Hollywood for Jerusalem in 2009, moving back to Israel after spending 12 years in the United States. From 1994-1997, Gidon served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in an infantry unit.
In addition to writing for The Algemeiner, Ben-Zvi contributed to the Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, CiF Watch, and blogged at Jerusalem State of Mind.
Ben-Zvi joined HonestReporting as a senior editor in June 2020, becoming an integral part of the editorial department and writing dozens of articles and media critiques for the watchdog group exposing anti-Israel bias. He moved with his family to Haifa at the end of 2022.
Ben-Zvi’s final article for HonestReporting was published in January 2025, before he took a leave of absence for health reasons. HonestReporting said in a newly published obituary that staff believed he would eventually return, noting the positivity and perseverance he exuded. The advocacy group said it learned of Ben-Zvi’s passing late last month.
Ben-Zvi leaves behind his wife, Debbie, and four young children.
All Ben-Zvi’s articles for The Algemeiner can be found here.
May his memory be a blessing.