Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday categorically rejected claims of starvation in the Gaza Strip, dismissing such reports as “a bold-faced lie.”
Speaking at a Daystar TV conference in Jerusalem hosted by Pastor Paula White, leader of the White House Faith Office, Netanyahu said, “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.” Israel, he continued, had “enabled humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza. Otherwise, there would be no Gazans.”
It is Hamas that had been preventing the distribution of aid in Gaza, said Netanyahu, noting that Israel had supplied 1.9 million tons of food to the war-ravaged territory since the beginning of the war nearly two years ago.
“Hamas robs, steals this humanitarian aid and then accuses Israel of not supplying it,” he continued.
The implementation of safe corridors over the weekend to allow food into Gaza, with 10-hour humanitarian pauses in the fighting, has taken away the United Nations’ “excuses and lies” that it could not deliver the food because it was too dangerous, said Netanyahu.
“The U.N. has no excuses left. No excuses left. Stop lying. Stop finding excuses,” said the Israeli premier. “Do what you have to do and stop accusing Israel deliberately of this egregious falsehood.”
‘Cherished Christian friends’
Netanyahu began his remarks at the event by highlighting the bond between Christians and Jews, which he called “a partnership bonded in faith, in history, in tradition,” and which he said was now facing “a battle of the truth.”
His outreach to the American evangelical Christian community also comes against the backdrop of spurious allegations against Israeli Jews regarding arson at a church, and a bureaucratic dustup, since resolved, over visas to evangelical Christian groups visiting the Holy land.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described the alleged July 7 attack on ancient church ruins in the Arab village of Taybeh in Samaria as “terror,” but the Israel Police subsequently announced that the holy site had not sustained any damage and arson had not been confirmed.
Meanwhile, Israel’s interior minister reversed a bureaucratic change in the process of issuing visas to American evangelicals that had led to delays and additional costs for pro-Israel Christian organizations.
“American Christians are some of Israel’s strongest supporters, and the resolution of this issue among friends is a welcome outcome,” stated Huckabee following the resolution of the visa issue.
Netanyahu on Sunday called the friendship between Christians and Jews “the mainstay of our present and future ability to live in a free, prosperous and peaceful world,” an alliance which he warned was “being challenged by an Islamic fundamentalism that seeks to subjugate all Muslims that they views as infidels and eradicate both the American and Israeli presence in the Middle East.”
Israel, he continued, was the “guardian of Christianity in the Middle East.” However, that “truth is being reversed,” he added.
“We see the effort to break down our bond, in America and other parts of the world. That partnership that promotes Judeo-Christian values, that protects in Israel Christians as nowhere else in the Middle East,”
he said.
The Jewish state is portrayed by “purchased influencers” on American television as an enemy of Christianity, he continued.
“What folly, what lies. What a travesty of truth.”
