Mere days after Israel was falsely accused of killing more than 100 Palestinians in a “strike” on crowds waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, media outlets are once again promoting a vicious and unsubstantiated allegation: Israel is perpetrating a “campaign of starvation” against Palestinians.
According to a statement signed by a group of so-called “UN experts,” “Israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October” and it is now “targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys.”
As reported by The Guardian:
UN experts have condemned the violence they say was unleashed by Israeli forces last week on Palestinians gathered in Gaza City to collect flour as a ‘massacre’.
In a statement, a group of UN special rapporteurs accused Israel of ‘intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October,’ adding: ‘Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys.’
‘Israel must end its campaign of starvation and targeting of civilians,’ said the UN experts, who warned there was mounting evidence of famine in the Gaza Strip.”
The piece, by the outlet’s senior US reporter Nina Lakhani, goes on to claim “Israel has targeted Palestinian food sources and agriculture – bakeries, orchards and greenhouses – as well as blocked humanitarian supplies” since the start of the war.
“The number of trucks allowed to enter the Gaza Strip has since fallen to 57 a day – compared with an average of 147 a day before the ICJ ruling,” Lakhani adds.
This, however, is a tissue of lies; nothing more than propaganda masquerading as news.
To set the record straight, despite the implications made by Lakhani or any other journalist, Israel has not imposed restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
Indeed, since Hamas launched its horrific attack on Israel on October 7, thousands of aid trucks have entered the enclave, bringing shelter supplies, medical equipment and mobile water desalination filters.
Over the last 2 weeks, an average of 102 food trucks entered Gaza daily.
This is 46% more food trucks entering Gaza on a daily basis, compared to before October 7th.There is no limit to the amount of humanitarian aid that can enter Gaza. pic.twitter.com/e8d16TnV65
— COGAT (@cogatonline) March 6, 2024
Aside from the litany of falsehoods that comprise the bulk of the article, it is also worrying that Lakhani only identifies one of the seven “UN experts” who signed the letter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese.
As per usual, Albanese’s ugly history of antisemitism and support for Palestinian terrorism, which has included her comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, claiming America is being subjugated by a “Jewish lobby” and insisting that Hamas has a “right to resist,” is completely omitted.
Just who are some of the “UN experts” quoted by the international media claiming Israel is “intentionally starving the Palestinian people?”
They may use the imprimatur of the UN but, in reality, they aren’t the credible, impartial sources you or the media may think. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/IgeHxmLBeM
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 6, 2024
Another signatory is Michael Fakhri, the special rapporteur on the “right to food,” who is an outspoken supporter of the BDS movement, which seeks to economically strangle and eventually dismantle the Jewish state, and signed an academics’ petition that claims, “the Palestinian struggle as an indigenous liberation movement confronting a settler colonial state.”
And then there is Reem Alsalem, who is the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls.
Alas, Alsalem appears to have something of a blindspot when it comes to violence directed at women and girls when the perpetrators are Palestinian terrorists and their victims are Jewish women.
After all, why else would Alsalem pretend she was “unaware” of Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks and claim that she had not seen enough evidence to say Hamas terrorists raped women on October 7?
The Guardian has not been alone in pushing the demonstrably false claim that Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians and maliciously withholding humanitarian aid.
CNN also published a piece that failed to name any of the letter’s signees, while confidently printing the accusations of a “Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson” without saying Hamas runs the ministry.
An "investigative journalist" set out to uncover the whereabouts of humanitarian aid that Palestinians in Gaza so desperately need. Instead of reporting facts, CNN’s @nimaelbagir, once again, pushed an incorrect, particularly one-sided narrative. pic.twitter.com/QydIpF0qlK
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 6, 2024
The allegation that Israel has a policy of restricting essential humanitarian aid to Gaza is a lie.
And the repetition of a lie does not make it the truth.
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