When it comes to the Gaza Strip, public headlines too often flatten human tragedy into slogans: “genocide,” “famine,” “ethnic cleansing.” Recent articles circulating in the Israeli press and social media have gone so far as to argue—on the basis of spreadsheets and calorie charts—that Israel is guilty of deliberately starving Gazans into submission. Their starting point? A comparison between the number of trucks Israel allows in and some estimate of how many calories an average Gazan requires. Neat, simple and supposedly universally moral.
But hunger isn’t a spreadsheet, and it certainly isn’t a banner for political rallies. If the analysis stops at calories-in versus mouths-to-feed, it misses the messy, often ugly, reality on the ground: Hamas propaganda, food theft, internal corruption, logistical chaos, and the tragic use of both Gazan civilians and Israeli hostages as pawns in a cruel game.
One widely circulated claim takes official Israeli data on food convoys and compares it to a Ministry of Health nutritional baseline. The “finding” is that shipments fall short of international minimums; therefore, famine is evident, and thus Israel is guilty. But the leap from calorie spreadsheets to accusations of genocide ignores several critical problems:
• Miscalculations: While deliveries fluctuated, the number of aid trucks rarely fell below about 100 per day, which, by Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), meets or exceeds the basic caloric needs of the population. According to the official website, from Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the massacre, until today (mid-August 2025), 100,000-plus trucks were delivered with more than 1.5 million tons of food.
• Aid Diversion: U.N. tracking between May and August 2025 shows that nearly 87% of aid trucks never reached intended civilians, with the overwhelming majority intercepted by Hamas or its affiliates. Very little of this diverted aid is redistributed fairly to the population.
• Hamas Targeting of U.S.-Israel Distribution: Even when Israel and the United States set up direct distribution mechanisms to bypass Hamas, these convoys and warehouses were deliberately attacked. Aid workers were injured and sites targeted—clear evidence that Hamas seeks to prevent food from reaching civilians if it undermines their control.
• Prices versus hunger: Publications point to rising food prices as “proof” of famine. But prices rise not only from scarcity. In a war economy, theft, hoarding and selective distribution can create artificial shortages. Testimonies from Gazan merchants and even Mahmoud Abbas himself note that Hamas routinely skims 15% to 25% of incoming goods for profit, taxing or outright seizing food. That alone is enough to create inflation and deprivation, regardless of Israel’s supply.
• Suspiciously wrong predictions: U.N.-affiliated bodies forecast widespread starvation deaths in spring 2024. Yet by mid-year, the actual number of reported deaths from malnutrition in Gaza remained comparable to baseline mortality in Egypt or Jordan. That discrepancy should give pause before accepting famine proclamations at face value.
It is no secret that Hamas has mastered the art of staging suffering. The group films hungry children, long bread lines, and crying mothers, pushing these images into global news cycles. That does not mean suffering isn’t real. It means that the suffering is weaponized. To dismiss this as “secondary” is to ignore a central pillar of Hamas’s strategy. The group benefits politically every time hunger headlines run worldwide.
The deeper tragedy is that this propaganda works because Hamas itself creates conditions for hunger. By seizing convoys, storing food in tunnels, or rewarding loyalists with access to aid, Hamas amplifies suffering among ordinary families while shielding itself. No amount of spreadsheet analysis can explain why sacks of flour end up in Hamas depots while U.N. trucks are looted.
The legal picture
Under international law, responsibility for preventing famine in Gaza does not rest on Israel alone. Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) obligates parties to allow the free passage of food and medicines for civilians, but Article 55 places the primary duty on the power in effective control of the territory to ensure adequate supplies—in this case, Hamas as the de facto governing authority. Israel justly maintains that since its disengagement in 2005, it is not the occupying power inside Gaza: It controls, for its own security, certain borders that were breached during the Oct. 7 massacre; however, during the war, Israel has not established governance or taken control of the internal distribution of aid.
Egypt, too, shares responsibility since the Rafah border crossing is an internationally recognized relief channel. Crucially, Hamas not only diverts and taxes aid but also prevents evacuation to safer zones, and together with Egypt and other “pro-Palestinian” countries, prevents voluntary emigration of Gazans abroad, deliberately keeping civilians in harm’s way and worsening shortages. Ignoring this shared responsibility and blaming only Israel is not just misleading but erases the role of those who deliberately turn hunger into a weapon.
In short, Israel’s obligation is to allow humanitarian relief to pass, subject to legitimate security checks. International law is clear. Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” That is precisely why Israel insists on facilitating aid convoys, even at significant risk to its own soldiers. The same article also notes that civilian starvation caused by “circumstances beyond the control” of a party, such as the adversary’s theft or sabotage, cannot simply be laid at the gate of the other belligerent. It is not required to guarantee that Hamas won’t steal, hoard or manipulate foodstuffs. To pretend otherwise is to rewrite international law in the service of a political narrative.
A few uncomfortable questions deserve more attention than they usually get: If more food enters Gaza today than in peacetime, how is famine possible unless Hamas withholds it? Why do U.N. famine forecasts consistently overshoot, while actual mortality remains in line with neighboring countries’ peacetime levels? Is it credible that Hamas profits by pocketing 15% to 25% of food aid—by its own leaders’ admission—and still blames Israel for the resulting shortages?
Until these questions are answered honestly, the famine narrative will remain half-truth at best.
Fact box: Numbers that don’t add up
• Truckloads: During the war period, 100,000-plus trucks were delivered with more than 1.5 million tons of food.
• Calorie requirements: Average Gazan needs about 2,100 calories a day. The food deliveries equaled approximately 2,490 calories a day per person, which meets or exceeds the international standard, before local farming is counted.
• Price hikes: Wheat prices are up 200%, yet supplies rose. The difference? Hamas taxation, smuggling and selective access.
• Mortality: Malnutrition deaths in Gaza are comparable to Egypt’s annual baseline and far below “famine” thresholds.
The hunger of Gazans is real. But its cause is not the simple arithmetic of Israel blocking calories. It is the ruthless politics of Hamas, which exploits suffering to keep its grip on power. Hunger becomes a bargaining chip, a photo opportunity, and tragically, a weapon against its own people. The irony is glaring: If Hamas were to capitulate, release Israeli hostages it intentionally starves and end its parasitic hoarding and taxation of food aid, most of Gaza’s hunger could be relieved almost overnight. That truth doesn’t fit neatly in a spreadsheet, but it is the only truth that matters.
Finally, it is worth remembering that accusations framed as “universalist ethics” often serve political opposition, worldwide and within Israel itself. By painting the government as a perpetrator of genocide or deliberate hunger, critics hope to topple it on the international stage. This intent, no less than Hamas propaganda, must be weighed when assessing the credibility of publications that present themselves as neutral “math” coming from such sources.
Whatever one’s opinion of the government, such sweeping accusations inflict real harm on Israel itself—undermining its ability to fight while adhering to the highest moral standards, often at the terrible cost of its own soldiers’ lives.
