Hunger games: How Israel manufactured a looting crisis in Gaza to cover up famine
Israel's engineered 'Hamas looting crisis' has long served as an excuse to cover up its deliberate weaponisation of starvation against Gaza's entire population
Since the onset of its genocide, Israel has persistently pushed a narrative that the famine devastating Gaza is not of its own making, but the result of "Hamas looting aid".
This claim, repeated across mainstream media and parroted by officials, has been used to deflect responsibility for what many human rights experts have called a deliberate starvation campaign.
Even after Israel fully banned the entry of food, water, fuel, and medicine on 2 March, Tel Aviv continued to maintain that Hamas looting, not Israeli policy, was to blame for the humanitarian catastrophe.
But that narrative has now been discredited by Israel’s internal reporting. This week, the Israeli military admitted internally that out of 110 looting incidents they documented, none were carried out by Hamas. Instead, the looting was done by “armed gangs, organised clans” and, to a lesser extent, starved civilians.
Those very gangs and clans are backed by Israel; they enjoy full Israeli army protection and operate in areas Israel deems “ extermination zones”, where any Palestinian trying to enter would be killed or kidnapped on the spot.
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