https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-790880
World media has been focusing in the past week on what it called the “Hunger” in Gaza.
Biden administration officials told Minister Benny Gantz in Washington on Monday that the “food shortage crisis” impacting Palestinians in Gaza is “intolerable,” and improving the distribution of humanitarian aid in the region will be a primary focus during their discussions.
According to Reuters, The United Nations said in February that more than a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were “estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” It said that without action, widespread famine could be “almost inevitable.”
“The food shortage and use of the word ‘hunger’ have been exaggerated,” a senior Israeli defense official told me on Thursday during a briefing. “There is no hunger in Gaza,” he said, explaining that most of the food that Israel has been sending into the Strip has “immediately been taken by Hamas terrorists, who then sell some of the supplies for ten times more than what it’s worth.”
Trucks carrying aid line up near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, February 1, 2024. (credit: MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/REUTERS)
A former senior Israeli defense official who I spoke to on condition of anonymity has also said that “there is no food shortage in Gaza; there are those who are hungry since Hamas has taken all of the food and they don’t have enough money to pay Hamas on the black market.”
According to this former official, the food does not reach those who need it most since Hamas controls approximately 70-80% of the area. What happens is that Israel and foreign countries bring food and aid into Gaza. Then gangs take the supplies at gunpoint, and a significant portion of the population is left unable to afford necessities.
World media has been focusing in the past week on what it called the “Hunger” in Gaza.
Biden administration officials told Minister Benny Gantz in Washington on Monday that the “food shortage crisis” impacting Palestinians in Gaza is “intolerable,” and improving the distribution of humanitarian aid in the region will be a primary focus during their discussions.
According to Reuters, The United Nations said in February that more than a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were “estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” It said that without action, widespread famine could be “almost inevitable.”
“The food shortage and use of the word ‘hunger’ have been exaggerated,” a senior Israeli defense official told me on Thursday during a briefing. “There is no hunger in Gaza,” he said, explaining that most of the food that Israel has been sending into the Strip has “immediately been taken by Hamas terrorists, who then sell some of the supplies for ten times more than what it’s worth.”
How severe is the food shortage in Gaza?
He said that “every family has enough food to survive. Are they eating five meals a day? The answer is no. We have been supplying them with aid as well as the US, but unfortunately, it wasn’t distributed to the citizens themselves.”
A former senior Israeli defense official who I spoke to on condition of anonymity has also said that “there is no food shortage in Gaza; there are those who are hungry since Hamas has taken all of the food and they don’t have enough money to pay Hamas on the black market.”
According to this former official, the food does not reach those who need it most since Hamas controls approximately 70-80% of the area. What happens is that Israel and foreign countries bring food and aid into Gaza. Then gangs take the supplies at gunpoint, and a significant portion of the population is left unable to afford necessities.
