Is Israel starving Gaza?

Is Israel starving Gaza? I hear wildly different claims, from some saying they're committing genocide, while others say the starvation narrative is essentially a hoax. This is my 82nd video here, and it was by far the trickiest to research. It's easy to read a few articles and think their reality, but then you look at other news sources and see a completely different reality. Getting information out of that region is crazy hard. Not just because they're in the midst of a war, but one where propaganda plays such an important role.

I'm going to do my best to answer three questions here. First, are people starving in Gaza? And if so, to what extent? Second, to the extent that it's happening, is starvation an Israeli policy, or is something else going on? And finally, regardless of anyone's intention, who's to blame for what's happening?

If you're a hardcore activist on either side, you'll probably hate this video and call me names. But if you really want to figure out what and why things are occurring, I think you'll find it fascinating. Because, as is so often the case, complex reality is rarely as simple as it first appears. I'm Ken Leort, and my only promise to you here is that I'm doing my best to put aside my biases and my beliefs, which I certainly have, and answer these questions as fairly as I can.

But as I researched, I ran into major hurdles to understanding the truth. And the first issue is essentially everyone's a partisan on this conflict. We can all hate suffering and death, but people are emotionally split on what's going on. Should Israel give back the land it stole and stop killing people? Or should Gazans accept that Israel isn't going anywhere and stop trying to kill Jews every time they get their hands on a weapon? That divide, combined with a really complicated scenario, makes finding truth difficult.

And the only way that I can properly explain what I learned is by first giving you a good amount of context for this war, understanding the goals and tactics of those involved. To do that, we'll first look at how they fight, because Israel and Hamas are waging war in very different ways. Then, we'll get into why the fog of war is especially thick here, intentionally. So, next, we'll look at a timeline of key events, and then I can give you my best shot at answering the questions I raised.

Okay, so let's take a look at how they fight because this isn't a war between two equal powers, and they're not fighting in the same way at all. From a strength and size point of view, it's a David versus Goliath fight. Israel is the regional superpower. It has one of the most advanced militaries in the world: jets, helicopters, tanks, layered missile defense systems, and deep ties with the United States. Gaza. It's a small piece of land with more than two million people, cut off from most of the world and heavily dependent on outside aid. They really have no sophisticated weaponry, and they've generally done a poor job of attacking Israel. But they had, from their point of view, a wild success on October 7th, killing about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians. Israel's subsequent counterattack and war has killed an estimated 40 to 50 times that number.

Now, I'm not going to dwell on the carnage, which is horrific and undeniable for both sides. But I do want to talk about the nature of Hamas for a minute because it's confusing to some. It's not just some terrorist group, even though that's the shorthand that many people use, and certainly Israel does. Because for nearly 20 years, it was the government of Gaza. It won an election and then held power through violence. It ran Gaza schools, hospitals, media outlets, and the police, while also firing rockets and organizing raids against Israel. To some extent, it rules by fear, but there certainly was and still seems to be serious support by Gazans for both Hamas and its continued military fight against Israel.

So, with that, one thing is easy to see: Hamas and Gaza don't stand a chance in a conventional war. The only effective weapon they have is global sympathy. The civilian death toll, the images of bombed-out neighborhoods and injured children, they all sway world opinion. Hamas clearly understands that this sympathy and worldwide pressure is the only possible pathway for them to win.

Now, that leads them to tactics that many people find reprehensible. Because while some people deny it, to me, it's pretty clear. They fight from hospitals. They store weapons and hide fighters in schools. They use ambulances for military transport. They put civilians in harm's way because civilian deaths help them achieve their goals. Now, they can't admit that, of course, but the reality is for them, it's working better than any other tactic they have. I mean, they still haven't capitulated to Israel, and much of the world is rooting for them. We can debate the ethics of these tactics, but that strategy has been more successful than their soldiers dying in mass. Israel may have the firepower here, but Hamas is winning the PR war.

Of course, Hamas would argue that support comes from them having the upper moral hand, given their history and their massive numbers of comparative casualties. But it's also because they have some advantages in the information war that Israel doesn't have. So, we've all heard about the fog of war, and all wars produce bad information. Each side has its own spin, which on top of the general chaos makes it hard to get true information. And and much of that confusion and misreporting is deliberate, as it always is.

I could spend hours talking about which side lied or exaggerated claims in this conflict and literally do an entire video on one incident, but I think it's more helpful to look at a few of the structural informational differences here because that often helps Hamas. The first is that it can control the narrative from its side more strongly than Israel can. What do I mean by that? Well, inside Gaza, there's no concept of an independent press. If journalists post anything critical, they risk arrests, beatings, or a lot worse. Reporters tell stories of Hamas threatening them during the war, and others have been attacked for covering things like small protests against the group. Even though Hamas is losing power, they're deadly dangerous to locals who cross them. And Hamas is not only fighting this war, but it also runs, for instance, the Gaza Ministry of Health, which gives out the numbers of civilian death counts, a key part of their strategy. Now, those might be completely true or partially true, but Hamas has strong control on what information leaves Gaza.

In Israel, it's different. It has a free press, active opposition parties, and activist groups that call the government out, even during war. Now, look, don't get me wrong. The Israeli press supports Israel, and Israel's military spokespersons have made exaggerated claims and walked them back later. But in Israel, lies and bad information can be challenged. Remember the early stories of babies being beheaded on October 7th? Those went viral worldwide, but Israeli journalists were among the first to question officials, and within days, the government admitted they couldn't prove most of those claims. That kind of self-correction happens in Israel, but in Gaza under Hamas, it doesn't.

On top of that, most foreign reporters can't even enter Gaza during fighting. Israel controls most of that territory, and it's been strict about keeping foreign reporters out. They don't see outside reporters as their friends, but excluding them sometimes means that the only information comes from Hamas. Let's take the worst death count for instance. Hamas says over 60,000 people have died, including 18,000 children. Israel doesn't even try to offer a counter number. They only say that there's a 2:1 ratio of civilians to combatants who've been killed. So, I don't know if that number of 18,000 dead kids is accurate. I know Hamas has a big reason to inflate it, but there's no other source to say whether it's accurate or not. So, if someone asks, "How many kids did Israel kill in Gaza?" It's the only number we have to work with.

When it comes to malnutrition and starvation, we essentially have the same difficulties in understanding what's going on.

Okay. So, a final point I'd like to make about the information war is that it's not just Hamas and Israel pushing their stories. Outside organizations, which you might think would be neutral players, all come with their own politics and blind spots. The first is the United Nations. It's routinely cited for statistics and reporting, and it runs major relief operations in Gaza. It's the pre-eminent world organization, so people often think of it as a neutral jury weighing the facts. But that's a wildly simplistic view. For decades, the UN has been adversarial towards Israel. It calls Israel an occupying power, uses the term genocide, and blames Israel alone for Palestinian suffering, and demands ceasefires that ignore Hamas's role in triggering the recent war.

Palestinians and their supporters say that's exactly the point. Israel is the aggressor, the occupier, the violator. But the UN is composed of nations which are essentially voting blocks. And in those blocks, Israel doesn't stand a chance. There are about 50 Muslim majority countries, and they usually vote together on issues around Israel. Add in dozens of other nations that see Israel as part of Western colonial powers, and you get an overwhelming majority lined up on one side. The United States and a handful of generally Western allies will sometimes push back, but they're swamped in the count. And the fallout from that is predictable. UN debates and reports lean heavily against Israel, not because every claim has been evaluated on its merits, but because the institution's politics tilt it that way from the start.

The worldwide media. Almost all are firmly on one side or the other. In general, nuance and understanding seem to be dirty words to them. So, enough said on that.

And then finally, there's the issue of aid agencies and NGOs that deliver food, medicine, shelter. These groups save lives and help people going through unimaginable times. Their workers often risk their own health and lives, and many of them define the word hero. And in Gaza, they have another tightrope to walk. They need Hamas's approval, which means staying on their good side. Staffers who've angered Hamas have been threatened or expelled. Reports that might embarrass Hamas, like militants seizing aid or using hospitals for cover, rarely make it into official statements. That's just a fact of life in the conflict, and it's another element to factor into your thinking.

Now is a good time to tell you that if I made a significant error anywhere in this video, let me know in the comments, and I'll address it in the description box. So, to make sense of where we are now, it helps to look at how we got here. Here's a quick timeline of key events.

Before October 7th, Gaza already lived under a kind of permanent squeeze. Israel and Egypt controlled what came in and out of the area, including fuel, food, medicine. Israel inspected every truck, trying to keep weapons out. Humanitarian aid came in daily, but not freely. And there were often warnings of famine even back then. Aid groups spent years warning that Gaza was one crisis away from collapse. Between 2021 and 2023, more than a dozen reports used phrases like "teetering on the brink" or "impending famine." This isn't a new narrative, and it's fair to say that in the past, it was often overblown.

Then came October 7th, and Israel shifted from containment to destruction. Officials said the goal wasn't just to weaken Hamas, but to eliminate it as the governing force in Gaza. That meant full-scale war and tightening the crossings. For the first 80 days, Israel imposed what aid groups called a total blockade, cutting off food, fuel, and water. Supplies piled up at border crossings, waiting for clearance. As the war progressed, Israel claimed that Hamas was routinely stealing aid, selling it, and then buying weapons with that money. From the Israeli point of view, foreign aid was essentially financing Hamas to fight the war.

So in mid-2024, the United States and Israel created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or GHF. The idea was to set up an alternative distribution channel. Aid would enter Gaza under heavy inspection, bypass Hamas, and be delivered by vetted partners. The GHF became controversial immediately. Hamas called it a tool of Israeli control. Some UN officials said it was unsafe and ineffective. Still, by mid-2025, the foundation had moved tens of thousands of tons of food into Gaza while taking heavy criticism and even threats from Hamas-aligned groups.

In March of 2024, when ceasefire talks collapsed, Israel closed the border again for almost 2 months to pressure Hamas to stop fighting and release even more Israeli hostages. And Hamas started to show cracks. Reports surfaced of financial strain with fighters complaining of unpaid salaries and dwindling resources. Clans and gangs also began taking over in parts of northern Gaza, looting convoys and carving out their own sphere of control. In a place where the government was supposed to be Hamas, order began to fall apart.

And now the final piece of the context we need to look at is who really controls Gaza today? The answer is it's mainly Israel, but not fully. Their military controls the skies, the borders, and every truck that crosses in. Food, medicine, fuel, it all gets inspected by the IDF before it enters. And when the army launches operations inside Gaza, entire neighborhoods can be sealed off immediately. Hamas is a shadow of what it used to be, but it still has fighters, rockets, and projects itself as the defender of Palestinians. Still, it's lost its ability to function as a government, and its grip on aid distribution is weaker, although not totally gone. It still ambushes Israeli forces, taxes goods, and can be fearsome to locals. The gangs and clans also target incoming aid. They hijack trucks, seize food, and carve out turf. It all makes it harder to get food to civilians. And aid agencies, they can't move without both Israel's permission and Hamas's tolerance. There have also been riots and shootings at food distribution sites, sometimes by Israelis and sometimes by Palestinians, and they always blame each other. When Israel tried to deliver some food by airdropping it, when people ran under the crates, some were injured, others were killed, and that's terrible as well. So, I'm just scratching the surface of the complexity here. But handing out food in what's still a war zone has all sorts of ways to go bad. There's enough food to feed Gaza. It's just not getting distributed everywhere it needs to be.

Okay, so now let's look at the original questions that I raised in the beginning. First, are people starving in Gaza? From a numbers perspective, just like with civilian death counts, let's look at what the two opposing sides say. Benjamin Netanyahu essentially says the answer is zero and that the starvation narrative is propaganda. And Hamas, as of mid-August, it says there's been 266 starvation deaths in Gaza, including 122 children. For absolute deaths, it seems reasonable to say that the number of people who died of malnutrition in Gaza is somewhere between zero and 266. So for those saying this is a Sudan-style famine with thousands of people dying, that's far beyond what even Hamas or anyone being honest is claiming.

Now look, I understand that the only acceptable answer to how many civilians should be starving to death is zero. But there's a big difference between those numbers and the perspective of what's happening. But there's also more hunger and suffering beyond outright deaths. Governments have methods to categorize famine and food insecurity in regions. And without getting into the changing numbers behind that, it seems undeniable that food is much scarcer than it's been, and its distribution has become really a humanitarian crisis. Food prices soared, with the price of some staple items like flour jumping more than a thousand percent. The difficulty of food can be seen at the distribution centers, which sometimes are violent and they're always disturbing. I mean, I can't imagine being trapped in a war zone and that that is the only way for me to feed my family. Yet, the very nature of the propaganda wars has some people claiming a situation that's far beyond what's happening, and other people claiming that it's vastly overblown. I mean, it's even hard to trust our own eyes sometimes. Because one reason is the images we've seen there are both horrible and sometimes misleading. We've seen pictures of children wasting away, but those too are more complicated than the headlines. Investigations found that many, some say most, of the viral photos of children looking like they're dying of starvation weren't straightforward starvation cases at all. They showed children with cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, or other severe health problems that weren't caused by the war. One New York Times cover showed an image of an 18-month-old boy who certainly looked starving, but the outlet didn't mention his pre-existing neurological conditions, or that he had a sibling standing right near him who didn't appear malnourished at all. Misleading, yes, but doctors in Gaza acknowledge that some of the dying or starving have chronic conditions, but they also say those conditions can sometimes be manageable when food and proper medical treatments are available. Some patients need specialized nutrient-rich food. And when those supplies dry up, the results are deadly. And while individual photos can be misleading or or even staged, it seems wrong to assume that they all are. President Trump is a strong supporter of Israel and it certainly affected him. "That's real starvation stuff. I see it. And you can't fake that. So, we're going to be uh even more involved."

Okay. So question number two is: starvation an Israeli policy? Under international law, that's a war crime. When starvation was first brought up in the early months of the war, the International Criminal Court even issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Critics could say that the times where Israel did seal off the border counts as that. But as we've seen, that that's not what's going on here now. There's hunger, but Israel is also helping deliver millions of meals to people they're at war with. Now, I'm soon going to touch on the overall blame, but I haven't seen any real evidence to support the notion that starvation is an intentional tactic of Israel. It it would also be the stupidest tactic ever. I mean, to kill a few hundred or even a few thousand people by starvation isn't something that would help Israel. It'd help Hamas. If those pictures of starving kids weren't sporadic or a dozen here and there, but a thousand, the world pressure against Israel would be enormous. And that would come from the United States as well. Still, all said, the current situation is awful.

So, let's answer the final question. Who's to blame? There's blame to go around, but to me, as I look at this issue, the primary responsibility goes to Israel. I don't believe they're doing it intentionally. But Israel destroyed the government of Gaza. Even if they had a good defensive reason for doing so, they now have the primary responsibility for providing the necessities for those civilians. I also think they understand that, and that that's a motivator for them to go back in and occupy Gaza, something they really don't want to do.

But Israel isn't the only one to blame here because Hamas is directly responsible for the situation as well. In fact, I'll go so far as to say they're encouraging it with their attacks on food distribution sites. They'd rather die than surrender. And right now, their best tactic is to create enough visible misery among their own people in hopes that the world helps them.

So, we have two enemies that have come to the conclusion that at the moment, continued war is their best course of action. Israel could stop fighting any time, but doesn't show any signs of doing that. And it's understandable. I mean, they know that if Hamas regains power as the government of Gaza, they get right back into the business of killing as many Jews as they can. That's what Hamas does. And it's also true that Hamas could surrender, or that Gazans could make a decision that defeat is actually a better alternative than this war. So, the Gazan population has some blame here as well. Now, I mean, it's hard to conduct polls and understand what percentage of them still support Hamas, but they certainly seem to cheer them on when the fight is still against Israel. So, when all sides see war as their best path forward, we shouldn't be surprised when that war continues with all of the horror that brings.

So, I got to say, this is a bit of a depressing video to make. Humans can be awful to one another. And sometimes it seems as though the world is more violent and deadly than ever. But is that true? Or does it just feel that way because we now have color pictures and live video feeds and tweets from battlefields? I looked at the ancient and more recent history of warfare to answer that question. And while it didn't make me happy about humans killing each other, in many ways, even today, we're living in the greatest era of peace on earth that mankind has ever seen.

This is an interesting video. Thanks for sticking around. It's a complicated world, and I hope I gave you some perspective. Until next time.