The idea there was famine in Gaza was a hoax, and the West fell for it completely

For almost three years, we have been told that Israel is starving the children of Gaza. That Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. We’ve been fed the most terrible and tragic images of emaciated children. Accusations have flown thick and fast. Starving babies. Famine. Intentional targeting of children. Genociders. All trumpeted by NGOs, UN officials, politicians, journalists, and commentators. Influencers and celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon to demonise Israel, treating accusation and allegation as proven fact.

Only it’s a lie. Or rather, a series of lies.

The UN’s own figures debunk one of the most poisonous accusations, nay libels, made against the Jewish State throughout the war in Gaza.

A UNICEF-coordinated nutrition survey carried out across Gaza between 31 May and 15 June 2026 found that acute malnutrition among children under five in Gaza was averaging approximately 0.5 per cent, ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 per cent across the governorates surveyed. After almost three years of supposed, deliberate starvation, Gaza’s acute child malnutrition rate sits firmly within the IPC’s lowest category, officially described as “Acceptable”.

Perhaps more telling is that the state of malnutrition in Gaza is better, in many cases far better, than almost all the countries in the Middle East.

The graph below outlines the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) and child wasting percentages across various Middle Eastern countries based on the latest available data from agencies like UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC):

Just to clarify, in case you missed it… Children under 5 years old, in countries in the region that are not at war, have higher rates of acute malnutrition than children in Gaza, despite almost three years of a war in which Israel is accused of intentionally starving Gaza’s children.

There are no marches for the starving children in Yemen, Syria, Oman or Bahrain, all of which are above the WHO emergency threshold of 5%. No one is protesting Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, all of which are way worse than Gaza. Apparently, no one gives a toss, unless they can blame Israel.

This does not mean there is not hunger in Gaza, that children aren’t suffering the terrible consequences of war. War is ugly, brutal and miserable. But hunger is not famine, and hunger during a war is not proof of deliberate starvation.

Apparently, Israel’s supposed strategy of deliberately and systematically starving Gaza’s children for almost three years has been an abject failure. Despite what you are being told by disingenuous charlatans and propagandists, when it comes to acute malnutrition, Gaza’s under-fives are better off than just about every country in the region.

It’s a miracle! Either that, or someone is lying, and getting a lot of help in the process.

This isn’t the first time the starvation narrative has run into the irritating inconvenience of evidence.

In May 2025, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher went on the BBC to announce that 14,000 babies would die within forty-eight hours unless food aid reached Gaza.

14,000 babies, dead within 48 hours. Now that is truly horrendous.

It was the sort of claim designed for the age in which nobody reads beyond a headline. Except, that was another lie. Nobody thought to check. No one examined the claim, which was as ludicrous as it was dishonest.

But a highly effective and damaging piece of propaganda, just the same, as it exploded around the world, eagerly trumpeted by the usual subjects. It went viral as further proof of Israeli barbarity.

Once he was caught out, Fletcher attempted to clarify his statement. But by then, who cared? The headline had done its job. Israel had been accused, condemned and convicted. The correction could shuffle quietly off into obscurity.

Then there was famine. Or rather, the famine that wasn’t.

The numbers are as farcical as the claim itself.

The IPC defines famine as requiring, among other things, at least 2 deaths for every 10,000 people every day from starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. Across Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million, that equates to 420 deaths a day, which means more than 150,000 a year. Up until the declared ceasefire and return of all hostages, the war lasted more than 2 years. Do the maths.

Back in the real world, the WHO recorded 421 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza in the whole of 2025. It is estimated there were circa 200 malnutrition- or dehydration-related deaths in 2024. Multiply these casualty figures by ten, even one hundred, and they would still be nowhere near the number needed to qualify as famine.

Moreover, the IPC officially declared famine in August 2025 in the Gaza Governorate. This was presented to the world as further proof that Israel was deliberately starving Palestinians.

But, by late November 2025, the famine was over. Barely three months. Quite possibly the shortest famine in modern history.

And just a year after famine was declared, UNICEF’s own survey finds acute malnutrition among Gaza’s children lower than reported rates in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and much of the surrounding region. From famine and mass starvation to some of the lowest levels of acute child malnutrition in the Middle East in twelve months.

Either we have just witnessed one of the most miraculous recoveries from famine in history, or there was no famine to start with.

Then we come to the food itself.

Here are yet more UN figures that cast even more doubt on the starvation narrative.

The UN’s own tracking system showed that approximately 87 to 88 per cent of humanitarian aid trucks never reached their intended destinations inside Gaza. During some periods, the figure exceeded 90 per cent.

Nine out of ten aid trucks never got to the people in need.

Food was entering Gaza in significant quantities. According to the IDF, we are talking 2 million tons of aid, of which 90% disappeared before reaching the people it was intended to feed.

It turns out that Hamas was indeed hijacking aid, stockpiling it and either selling it to ordinary Gazans at exorbitant prices or denying it altogether, to manufacture hunger for propaganda purposes. Ordinary Gazans are hungry. Blame the Jews.

In late 2025, Gaza-born Palestinian analyst and Hamas critic Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib published disturbing footage of a Hamas warehouse packed with infant formula, powdered milk and nutritional shakes for children. It had apparently been left there until it expired.

Alkhatib accused Hamas of deliberately stockpiling “literal tons” of children’s food aid and denying it to ordinary Gazans in order to deepen the hunger crisis and feed the starvation narrative against Israel.

One might have expected some kind of investigation. But nope. That would compromise the anti-Israel narrative.

The wilful starvation of children is perhaps the most grotesque accusation levelled at the Jewish state. The imagery is so powerful, emotive and oh so effective as propaganda.

But it’s hardly new. Jews have been accused of committing unimaginable crimes against children for centuries. Jews poisoned wells. Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for demonic rituals and to make matzas.

Today, few will openly accuse Jews of drinking non-Jewish children’s blood, although they may think it. The socially acceptable version now is the Jewish state deliberately starves Palestinian babies. That the IDF intentionally targets children. That its snipers use them for target practice.

Same, same, but different.

A modern blood libel, sick propaganda, call it what you will. It’s all lies. False narratives intended to demonise Israel.

UNICEF’s latest figures on malnutrition, UNRWA’s stats on aid, and the IPC’s statements regarding famine. Together, they make a mockery of these false accusations. They expose those who promote them as bad actors. Disingenuous and fundamentally dishonest.

How much evidence does it take before people say enough? Enough lies. Enough propaganda. Enough hatemongering. None of it helps ordinary Gazans. It only encourages Hamas to keep doing what it’s doing. It only ensures that Gazans will continue to suffer and be exploited by Hamas.

The world will continue to ignore it, but the evidence is clear. There is no starvation in Gaza. The only one using hunger as a weapon is Hamas.

UNICEF has simply provided the latest round of inconvenient truths.

Hamas will continue to lie. Bad actors will continue to trumpet the propaganda. Journalists and commentators already invested in the anti-Israel narrative will write what they want regardless. Influencers will peddle falsehoods for clicks. Celebrities will continue to play the useful idiot.

The evidence is there for anyone who cares enough to look. These are not Israeli claims. They are not government spin. It’s the UN’s own figures, its own reports, its own data that debunk the lies.

Perhaps it is time to stop being told what to think, for ordinary people to stop acting like sheep and start thinking for themselves. For those who claim to care about human rights, truth and justice. to question, to challenge, to apply some common sense.

And when the evidence demands it, to have the courage to say, this is simply not true.

Gary Cohen is a writer and filmmaker. His substack can be found here: