Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reports evidence that contradicts a popular anti-Israel narrative.
New evidence indicates that, contrary to claims by top U.S. officials and international media, the Gaza Strip is not on the precipice of a widespread famine that Western experts claimed would endanger millions of innocent Palestinians.
“Famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a network of Western governments, the United Nations, and nonprofit groups, warned in March, prompting unfounded accusations that Israel is using starvation as a war tactic. The IPC’s report was quickly amplified by outlets like the Washington Post, which foretold “imminent famine” in Gaza. Politico, the New York Times, and CNN alleged Israel is guilty of war crimes.
But on Tuesday, the IPC revised its initial assessment, saying that the projected famine in Gaza did not come to fruition in May. “The available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring,” the organization said in its latest report, which notes that Israel has significantly increased aid and that conditions as a whole in Gaza have drastically improved.
This is the latest example of an international agency walking back its initial assessment of the situation in Gaza. The U.N., in May, cut its death toll figures for women and children in half, showing that Hamas has been lying about casualties in a bid to undermine Israel’s legitimacy on the international stage. Like the reports of famine, media outlets have uncritically repeated these claims and U.S. leaders have used them to pressure Israel into agreeing to a ceasefire. Misleading claims about Israel’s war effort have become a hallmark of the current conflict, with the Jewish state waging an international PR battle that is just as critical as its military operations.
“This is a decisive rebuke to malicious claims that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war against the people of Gaza,” David Adesnik, a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said in a statement on the IPC’s latest report.
