Author Robert Inlakesh

Over the past months pro-Israel personalities and media outlets have been working overtime in an attempt to show that there has been no famine in Gaza and has run yet another campaign to deny the Gaza death toll. These false claims and distortions of reality have gained a lot of attention on social media, despite Israeli officials themselves contradicting such narratives.

Before looking at some of the recent claims pushed by pro-Israel propagandists online, it is important to preface the following dismantlement of the allegations with a disclaimer:

What we are now witnessing on social media, are a series of atrocity and genocide denial campaigns. These distortions, tricks, and outright lies are often started by partisan groups that do not enjoy credibility anywhere beyond their own pro-Israel echo-chambers, but are unfortunately still quoted by semi-reputable media outlets, affording them relevance and credibility that wouldn’t exist otherwise. To be clear, even Israel’s own human rights groups refuse to engage with these allegations, which are often directly contradicted by the statements of Israeli officials themselves.

“Hamas Admits” The Gaza Death Toll Was Faked?

At the beginning of April, the Telegraph published an article entitled “Hamas ‘quietly drops’ thousands of deaths from casualty figures“, which triggered what can only be referred to as a fabrication master-class that spread across social media platforms like X [formerly Twitter].

The report cites “new research” as the basis of the piece. While the Telegraph stuck to citing two pro-Israeli groups in its article, without reaching out to the Gaza Health Ministry or UN to clarify what they were being fed and failing to present potential counterpoints, the story really took off on social media when other outlets picked it up.

Then came the Jerusalem Post article entitled “Hamas admits 72% of combat-aged fatalities are men, quietly reduces civilian death toll – report”. This headline, which is what ended up going viral on social media, is incorrect on a number of levels, each of which deserve to be addressed.

To begin with, the so-called “research” cited comes from two sources that spoke to the Telegraph about their alleged findings. The main source for the recent series of claims was Salo Aizenberg of “Honest Reporting”, a non-for-profit organization that was described by the American Journalism Review as a “pro-Israeli pressure group“. As a side note on Honest Reporting, in 2022 Jacki Alexander became its Chief Executive Officer, and Gill Hoffman its Executive Director. Hoffman was previously a chief political correspondent at the Jerusalem Post, while Alexander is said to have served as a former AIPAC employee.

The other individual responsible for commenting on the claims made is Andrew Fox, who published a report entitled “Questionable counting” for the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, in December of 2024. Fox, who has been taken on guest trips by the Israeli Military, was found to have made allegations in his report that Action On Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based NGO, said “lacks evidence for key claims.”

AOAV’s investigation into Fox’s claims concluded that “no important implications flow from his findings.” While it acknowledges that Fox did indeed find errors in the Gaza Health Ministry’s reports, they were minor and sometimes even worked against Fox’s conclusions.

For example, one of the central claims that Fox made is that Gaza’s Health Ministry listed male as female casualties in order “to inflate female fatalities”. The AOAV concluded the following about this allegation:

“Fox reports only evidence that supports a narrative of intentional data manipulation by the MoH [Ministry of Health], while more comprehensive analysis is more suggestive of random error. Thus, while men are misclassified as women, women are also misclassified as men. A review of over 21,000 entries (53% of the total) from the most recent list published in October shows that of 116 entries with a likely misclassified sex (roughly 0.5% of the sample), 67 are men listed as women and 49 are women listed as men”

It suffices to say that the Questionable Counting report was itself, questionable, to say the least. Hence it was not treated as credible enough to seriously impact the considerations of reliable international organizations or human rights groups.

Next up is Honest Reporting’s “research”, which was posted as a thread on X by Aizenberg. He states that “Hamas’ new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully “identified” deaths listed in its Aug & Oct 2024 reports—including 1,080 children. These “deaths” never happened. The numbers were falsified—again.”

However, when Sky News looked into these allegations and questioned the Gaza Health Ministry about amendments to its death toll data, it clarified that some 1,852 people had been removed from its official war fatalities since October, refuting Aizenberg’s figures.

Central to this campaign to undermine the Gaza death toll is the allegation that its Health Ministry includes combatants and deaths from natural causes to inflate the numbers of civilians killed. Yet, as was revealed by Sky News, the Gaza Health Ministry does not even consider people who died from heart attacks or conditions like hypothermia — due to the conflict — in their toll.

In fact, many of the revisions to the death toll have occurred due to the fact that family members of the deceased in Gaza are able to fill out a form to register the death of a loved one. Sometimes, people will register a death that they personally deemed to be war related, but the Health Ministry does not, as they were an indirect war death.

Perhaps the most outrageous falsehood is the percentage of combat-aged fatalities propagated by the Jerusalem Post. In the article itself, it is written that “Approximately 72% of fatalities between the ages of 13-55 are men – the demographic category aligns with Hamas combatants.” However, the headline states that “Hamas admits 72% of combat-aged fatalities are men”.

Firstly, if you read the article itself it makes it clear that its claim is based upon a definition of “combat-aged fatalities” THAT INCLUDES CHILDREN. Yet, if you read the headline alone — a screenshot of which is what went viral online — it makes the claim that “72% of combat-aged fatalities are men”. This is a lie, even given the definition provided in the article itself that defines a 13-year-old child as “combat-aged”. Anyone under 18 is not considered a man, by calling them combat aged does not somehow rob them of their status as a child.

Reuters reported on the revision of the statistics issued by the Gaza Health Ministry, confirming that “nearly a third of the dead under 18“.

On top of this, there is the issue of these media outlets calling the Gaza Health Ministry “Hamas”, which is simply cheap propaganda. They understand full well that Hamas was the elected government in Gaza and thus the health ministry technically falls under their control, but by calling the health ministry “Hamas”, they are simply trying to tie the healthcare professionals that run it, most of which are not affiliated with Hamas in any way, as rifle-wielding militiamen.

 

While the Jerusalem Post’s story is false on a number of levels, it comes as no surprise. On December 3, 2023, the media outlet ran a story entitled “Al Jazeera posts blurred doll, claims it to be a dead Palestinian baby“. This then gave pro-Israel accounts across social media a “source” to launch a false campaign about Palestinians faking their own babies deaths.

After the claim was thoroughly debunked and the baby’s identity was revealed, the Jerusalem Post was pressured to take the story down. Their statement on the issue read that “over the weekend, we shared an article based on faulty sourcing. The article in question did not meet our editorial standards and was thus removed.” It expressed regret and says the issue was being addressed internally. However, the retraction never mentions the article in question, nor is there an apology to the bereaved family of the slain Palestinian baby — but the claims referencing this reporting (screen shots, twitter posts, etc.) continue, the damage already done.

The Jerusalem Post aside, the overarching agenda of downplaying the Gaza death toll is to try and support the notion that Israel has killed civilians and combatants at a ratio of 1:1. The Israeli military currently claims to have killed 20,000 Hamas fighters, which still wouldn’t make the death toll 1:1, even if that was true; which it clearly is not.

While so many “analyses” are being conducted, and so many “researchers” looking into Gaza’s death toll statistics, for which we have about 50,000 names so far, in addition to around 10,000 others who are missing under the rubble, you may ask why the Israeli “Hamas toll” hasn’t been subjected to similar investigations. The answer is simple, there is no evidence put forth by Israel to even conduct such an investigation.

Furthermore, there isn’t even a breakdown of which alleged “combatants” were members of the some dozen Palestinian armed groups that continue to operate throughout Gaza. They are all referred to as “Hamas”, with an occasional mentioning of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Unfortunately, the Western corporate media have largely fallen into the trap of entertaining the various unsubstantiated Israeli claims and those of their online propagandists. Like occurred during the build up to the Iraq war with the WMD claims — when you give an inch of credibility to such theories, the propagandists take a mile.

Following the media’s complicity in fear mongering over Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, then came the outlandish stories about Al-Qaeda collaborating with Saddam Hussein and so on. Similarly, when the corporate media gives legitimacy to mainstream Israeli propaganda, the pro-war propagandists see it as an opportunity to spread crazy theories that prey on the viewers/readers lack of knowledge about the topic.

No Famine In Gaza?

In early 2024, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — used as reference point for world hunger by leading NGO’s and the United Nations — warned of imminent famine for some 1.1 million people in the Gaza Strip. The World Bank also found the same in May of last year. By July, United Nations experts officially declared that famine had spread throughout the Gaza Strip, as infants began dying and hundreds of thousands suffered with issues related to malnutrition or lack of adequate supplies.

 

While the finger was solidly pointed at Israel for creating a famine in the Gaza Strip by rights groups, urging the immediate flow of food aid into the territory, perhaps the most powerful condemnation came from Israel’s own top rights group B’Tselem. In April, 2024, the Israeli human rights organization released a report entitled “Manufacturing Famine“, which directly accused Israel of deliberately implementing policies designed to bring about mass starvation.

 

Despite all of this, pro-Israeli propagandists have taken it upon themselves to claim that famine never happened and that “you have been scammed all along about Gaza”. Their tactic to show that Gaza is not suffering from a food shortage? Random videos of people inside malls in Gaza.

Pro-Israel account Oli London posted what is seemingly the most popular video used to make the argument that the World Bank, IPC, UN and B’Tselem are all lying. Oli wrote the following on X:

“Palestinian man shows off abundance of fresh food in a Gaza supermarket including; bananas, olives, oranges, lemons, Doritos, Pringles and nuts. The only people starving in Gaza are the Israeli hostages.”

Underneath the post many pro-Israeli accounts that shared it then chimed in, claiming that this is proof there was never any starvation in the Gaza Strip and that some kind of Hamas conspiracy has managed to brainwash the entire world. Using varying flagrant lies, many attempts have been made since October 7 to present the Israeli government’s directive of “no food, no water, no fuel” into Gaza as somehow false. And just as many have been exposed as lies.

 

Another X profile, called “Documenting Israel”, claimed that the mall is “brand new“, when Al-Danaf Hyper Mall, located in Nuseirat refugee camp, has been open for at least four years. It is clear from the videos shown that the mall was closed for more than a year and had just opened at the time — which was in February — following the ceasefire that was implemented on January 19.

This is perhaps the most ridiculous argument yet, but let’s break this down for what it is. Yes, the mall featured in the videos shown did have fruits and snacks. It is a mall and obviously there has to be some food entering Gaza for the people to still be alive there. If you look at all the areas where the population is crowded into, they have markets that still carry food. The food is limited and expensive, however, not only because Israel blocked the necessary food aid supplies from entering, but also because it worked with criminal gangs to hoard the food and bombed Hamas-linked security forces when they tried to stop them,

A single mall (which if you watch the video was not even completely stocked) during the ceasefire period when food was finally entering Gaza, does not “debunk” dozens of children dying of malnutrition, or the months of widespread starvation throughout the besieged coastal territory.

This argument is literally like watching a video of Jews who were liberated from concentration camps eating food and smiling, then claiming “look, these Jews aren’t starving after the war ended and that means they never were”. It is literally that level of stupidity. It is the kind of argument presented by people who are not only lacking in critical thinking skills, but are down right sadistic.

Furthermore, Israel has now been blocking all food aid from entering Gaza for the past eight weeks. It is estimated that once we enter the third month of this full blockade, the civilian population will begin to drain their very last food supplies. Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, recently confirmed the following:

“Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population.” “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid,” he continued.

 

 

The policy is crystal clear, Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. A video of some of the more affluent Palestinians who had the money to buy food from one of the sole remaining malls in the territory, during a ceasefire, where Hamas had to make it a condition of the ceasefire just for their to be sufficient food to enter, does not disprove this. The mere fact that Israel supporters were upset that food entered during the ceasefire, despite it being a violation of international law to have blocked that food in the first place, as well as denying that such blocking ever happened to begin with, really tells you everything you need to know about their mindset and intentions.