Starvation is true, but tell it like it is

It is true. There are people in Gaza who are starving. Many of the photographs that are going around the world showing the malnourished state of people are horrific, and most appear to be accurate. What isn’t accurate is who is to blame.

Let’s be honest here, there’s a war going on in Gaza, a war that began on 7 October 2023 after Hamas terrorists broke down the border with Israel and brutally murdered 1 200 people and raped and tortured thousands more. Israeli troops went into Gaza to retaliate against the terrorists, and have been there ever since – about 664 days of war.

There’s nothing uplifting or healthy about war. It’s horrific and anyone living in the town, state, or country in which war is being waged cannot be comfortable. Living in Gaza now must be akin to a living hell, and it’s no surprise that after so long, the situation is at its worst.

Why is the war still going on? I’m obviously not involved in the negotiations and so am not in the know as to what is really going on. Both sides claim it’s the other side that is making things difficult. However, at the negotiating table, Hamas, once again, a few days back refused a ceasefire deal proposed by the United States, Qatar, and Israel. But of course, the United Nations (UN) and Hamas-led leadership of Gaza will blame this on the Jewish state.

Why are Gazans starving? Good question, considering that last Friday, 950 trucks filled with 2 500 tons of food from the UN and other humanitarian aid organisations were sitting idle in Gaza close to the Keren Shalom border crossing, according to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The food was lying in the hot sun, going rotten, and people in Gaza were starving. The food wasn’t sent to them to be distributed despite people literally starving to death.

It seems like a knee-jerk reaction for the world to blame Israel for this and so many other crises. Hamas blames Israel. So does the UN. So, of course, many of the world’s media follows suit and blames the Jewish state. Add it to the claims of genocide, why don’t you?

However, truckloads of food are going through the border from Israel to Gaza and Israel hasn’t stopped them going in. So, there’s food in Gaza, and it’s a matter of getting it to the people in need. Israel is certainly not stopping this from happening. However, it doesn’t take much to find news reports claiming that Israel is blocking the food from getting into Gaza. And they quote Hamas and the UN.

First, one cannot trust a designated terrorist organisation with facts. It’s not simply engaged in lies, but manipulation of the truth simply to make Israel look terrible. It’s so good at this.

And the UN has unfortunately and so obviously taken a side and is pushing that agenda, and has been for a long time now.

We know that the food and aid that has gone into Gaza in the past has been hijacked by Hamas and, in many cases, sold for ridiculous amounts of money to those in desperate need, or simply not handed out at all.

Sitting in South Africa, we are so far from the coal face, and it’s difficult to glean the truth from what we read.

So, we reached out to find someone on the ground in Gaza who ultimately has no skin in the game, but knows exactly what is happening.

We found Reverend Johnnie Moore, the executive chairperson of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Moore is an American Christian minister who oversees a humanitarian aid initiative created to try and fix the flawed humanitarian aid system in Gaza so that Gazans get food. He is known to have been one of US President Donald Trump’s early evangelical backers, and has had many fingers in mainstream media pointed at him and his organisation. However, he gives us a very different picture to what we are seeing elsewhere. One that seems to make a lot of sense.

I believe it’s important for us to have access to as much information as possible. And the message from Moore certainly isn’t reaching most people who want to know what’s happening in Gaza and why people are starving.

I recognise that if the war was over, the likelihood of people starving would be much slimmer. I hope and pray it will be over soon, and the truth will then come out.

In terms of truth, a photograph of five-year-old Osama al-Rakab recently went viral on social media. The poor Gazan child looked malnourished and desperately skinny, like a Holocaust survivor at the end of the war. The message sent out with his picture claimed that Israel was responsible for his starvation and that of all other Gazan children.

Only, the child suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war, and on 12 June, Israel managed to get him and his mother out of Gaza to receive treatment in Italy.

Would that people go out of their way to get the facts or both sides of the story if they don’t have access to the absolute facts! This is such a clear example of this issue.

However, while Osama was used in this way, I cannot deny that Gazans are, in fact, starving.

Another photograph depicts what looks like a mother cradling her starving child in Gaza to show the humanitarian catastrophe. Honest Reporting uncovered that Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq also has a serious degenerative medical disorder, and though his condition has worsened since the war began, his malnutrition is as a result of needing specialised treatment and nutrition.

Again, apparently one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story that’s going to make Israel look terrible!

Yet, there’s little talk about the 50 people still being held hostage after 664 days in the hellholes of Gaza. If the population is starving, what of them?

If only they would be allowed to go home, this war could be over and done with. Israel cannot and will not end the war until this happens.

And much like starving people, these hostages are the leverage that Hamas is using against Israel. Enough! Let them go home, and allow Gazans to get food!

Shabbat shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor