No, Israel is not starving the people of Gaza

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A lorry transporting aid loads onto a U.S. cargo vessel for delivery into Gaza is pictured

A lorry transporting aid loads onto a U.S. cargo vessel for delivery into Gaza.

This may come as some surprise, but only three per cent of the residents of Rafah, in Gaza, were poorly fed in May, according to the United Nations. In Khan Yunis and the central town of Deir al Balah, that figure stood at six per cent. The biggest challenges were faced by those who had failed to evacuate from the north at the start of the campaign. There, 13 per cent were found to be hungry. The overwhelming majority of Gazans had “acceptable” quantities of food.

Now consider the situation before Hamas brought catastrophe to Gaza. Despite billions of dollars of aid money pouring into the Strip, 14 per cent of the population faced hunger in 2022, according to a contemporaneous study by the World Food Programme. So it appears that provisions are better now than they were when Hamas was in charge.

Not that you’d know it from the reporting. In its analysis, the UN grudgingly concluded that it was “unable to endorse” the classification made by the likes of the head of the World Food Programme, who had claimed that Gaza had entered a “full-blown famine”. Was there an apology? Nope. The new line, spun by the UN and amplified by the BBC and fellow travellers, was that Gazans faced “catastrophic levels” of hunger.

Without wishing to minimise the deprivations of war, here was an object lesson in propaganda in the age of mass media.

Step eagerly forward the Guardian, which on Tuesday published an article headlined “The starvation of Gaza is a perverse repudiation of Judaism’s values”. The author, John Oakes, is a radical American intellectual, whose authority appears to rest on his book about the history of fasting. Whether he knows anything about the conflict or Judaism, or has ever met anybody from Gaza, is unclear. According to his website, his second book will be about the nature of intelligence.

“For many months now, it has been no secret that one of America’s closest allies has been using hunger as a weapon against a civilian population,” he wrote, perplexingly.

“That hunger is being used by Israel is supremely ironic, given the particular role that privation from food plays both in Jewish philosophy and in the grim history of the Jewish people.” Thank you, Oakes, for helping Jews with our morality.

This morning, I spoke to a friend in Gaza whom I made during my time as a foreign correspondent. He telephoned me from his stifling tent in Deir al Balah, which had been donated by the Saudis.

“Food is available, everything is available,” he told me. “Meat, chicken, vegetables. It is not aid. It is coming from Israel, brought in by private people through the Keren Shalom crossing and sold to us as a business. The prices are much better, just a little bit higher than before the war.”

This was a relief, he added, as for seven months, Hamas had been stealing humanitarian aid and selling it to the population at exorbitant rates. Now, goods are being bought and sold as normal. Everybody he knows hates the jihadists with a passion, he remarked, scoffing at polls showing widespread support for the group in Gaza.

A former BBC executive told me this week that the intensity of Israelophobic bias there after October 7 meant that he would have handed in his notice had he not already left the corporation. At least two Jewish journalists have resigned from the Guardian in disgust, while many of those who remain have accepted Faustian conditions.

Sometimes it seems that western progressives have more sympathy for Hamas and a greater alignment with its goals than those who have actually experienced jihadism in Gaza.

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Hamas leader calls for Palestinian democracy

UPI

Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the Muqata in Ramallah, West Bank,

 Husam Badran, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau, has called for a national consensus democracy to take root in a unified Palestine as he encouraged armed Palestinians in the West Bank to resist Israeli occupation.

Badran, speaking to Qudsna TV on Saturday, said Hamas envisions a Palestine uniting Gaza and the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem, under one government in which all Palestinian factions can take part in governance.

The comments were seemingly made to reject Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call for the destruction of Hamas to end Israel's brutal war in Gaza. Israel has said it will only accept a ceasefire if Hamas no longer runs Gaza.

"Nothing can be arranged in the Palestinian arena without Hamas being present and having influence," Badran said. "International and regional parties realize that eliminating Hamas is not possible. All attempts to pressure Hamas to extract concessions from it have failed, and political games and negotiations will not succeed in that either."

In his remarks, Badran criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas -- the head of the partially self-governing body in the West Bank -- for rejecting and disrupting proposals to form a consensus government and for "allowing" the weakening of resistance to Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Abbas is also often referred to as Abu Mazen.

"The head of the Authority, Abu Mazen, is the one who rejects and disrupts the proposal to form a consensus government and went to form a government unilaterally without consulting anyone," Badran said. "Our Palestinian people will not stand in a waiting line until the Authority changes its position."

Badran said Hamas doesn't have a problem with Fatah, the main party in Abbas' Palestinian Authority government. Like Hamas, Fatah advocates for an independent Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

But Badran criticized the Palestinian Authority's intransigent position to form a consensus government with Hamas and other resistance factions in Gaza like Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front. And he said the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority is "incapable of performing its duties in the West Bank, let alone its ability to perform any role in Gaza."

"There are also protests within Fatah's ranks against Abbas's handling of the national issue and obstructing efforts to reach comprehensive national reconciliation," Badran said.

The Palestinian liberation movement does not just belong to Fatah, or any individual group or person, Badran said, asserting that no other government or group has the right to impose conditions on Hamas being part of a united Palestinian government.

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No progress in Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel, says Hamas official

The sun sets over Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, as seen from Israel

A senior official of the militant Islamist group Hamas, Osama Hamdan, said on Saturday there has been no progress in ceasefire talks with Israel over the Gaza war.

The Palestinian group is still ready to "deal positively" with any ceasefire proposal that ends the war, Hamdan told a news conference in Beirut.

Arab mediators' efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to conclude a ceasefire, with both sides blaming each other for the impasse. Hamas says any deal must end the war and bring full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is eradicated.

Hamdan also blamed the United States for applying pressure on Hamas to accept Israel's conditions.

"Once again, Hamas is ready to deal positively with any proposal that secures a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from Gaza Strip and a serious swap deal," said Hamdan, referring to a potential swap of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

When Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7 they killed around 1,200 people and seized more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The Israeli offensive in retaliation has so far killed nearly 38,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the heavily built-up coastal enclave in ruins.

The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel has lost more than 300 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave had so far killed at least 35 people and wounded others on Saturday.

The Israeli military on Saturday announced the death of two soldiers killed in combat in northern Gaza, as Israeli forces pressed on with an offensive in the Shejaia neighborhood in Gaza City.

Residents said tanks advanced deeper into several districts including the area around the local market and there was heavy fire from the air and the ground.

The armed wing of Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad reported fierce fighting, saying fighters fired anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs against the forces operating there.

The Israeli military said dozens of Palestinian gunmen were killed over the past two days in close quarters combat and airstrikes in Shejaia, after forces encircled what it described as a civilian area converted by Hamas into a militant compound.

"In the area, the troops located observation posts, weapons, enemy drones and a long-range rocket launcher near the schools," the military said in a statement.

Hamas has denied assertions that it operates in civilian areas such as schools and hospitals.

More than eight months into Israel's air and ground war in Gaza, militants continued to stage attacks on Israeli forces, operating in areas that the Israeli army said it had gained control over months ago.

Israeli leaders have said in the past week that the intense phase of the war is approaching its end, and that the next stage of the offensive will mainly be smaller-scale operations meant to stop Hamas from reassembling.

Meanwhile Israeli forces operating in several districts in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, killed several Palestinians and forced families living in the far western edge of the city along the coastal areas to head northwards, according to Palestinian medical officials and residents.

Israel has said its military operations in Rafah are aimed at eradicating the last armed battalions of Hamas.

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U.S. proposes revised Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal

The Biden administration has proposed new language for parts of the ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas after negotiations have stalled.

The revised deal, first reported Friday by Axios, comes after Hamas proposed amendments to the original three-part plan, including a timeline for a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, which Israel refused.

The new language reportedly focuses on negotiations between Israel and Hamas during the first stage that would set conditions for the second stage of the deal, which includes reaching a "sustainable calm" in Gaza.

The primary obstacle in these negotiations is that Hamas wants to focus only on the number and identity of Palestinians who would be released from Israeli custody in exchange for Israeli hostages, while Israel wants to be able to raise demilitarization of Gaza and other issues, according to Axios.

The United States is asking Qatar and Egypt to pressure Hamas into accepting the revised deal.

The second part of the plan has been a major sticking point. Hamas has called for a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some more right-wing members of his government have vowed to continue fighting until Hamas is eliminated.

Netanyahu on Sunday told Israel's Channel 14 he would accept a "partial deal" with Hamas that would free "some of the hostages" in Gaza and allow Israeli forces to continue the offensive.

The following day, Netanyahu walked back the comments after fierce pressure from the United States, Qatar, hostage families and even some Israeli politicians.

Israel's military operations in Gaza are nearing nine months since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. The war has now claimed 37,834 Palestinian lives and left 86,858 people injured, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces said it is "continuing operational activity against terror targets" in the mostly destroyed Shejaiya area of Gaza City, months after Israel said it had dismantled Hamas' operations in the north.

Gaza officials said they've received numerous calls from people trapped and injured by the fighting in Shejaiya.

"A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them," the Health Ministry said.

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