TEHRAN – Israel is relying on public relations stunts to distract global attention from the brutal siege of the Gaza Strip that has brought “massive starvation” on Palestinian territory.
Since launching the war with Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, largely restricting the flow of food and other essentials to enclaves.
Over the past few months, Israel’s near-complete siege of Gaza has plunged its territory into deeper hunger.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 130 people (most of them children) have died of malnutrition and hunger. Recently, more than 100 NGOs have warned Gaza that “mass hunger” is spreading.
World Health Organization Head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Gaza suffers from the artificial mass hunger caused by the blockade of aid to the territory.
Despite growing international pressure, Israel continued to block major groceries, bombed aid convoys, and those targeted those refuge near distribution points.
Israel tried to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, or that if there is hunger, it is not Israel’s fault. He also used platforms such as YouTube to remove himself from starvation and murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
However, comments by Amityi Eliyahu, a lawmaker who leads the Israeli Ministry of Heritage, contradicts the administration’s narrative.
“The government is competing ahead to get Gaza wiped out…Thank God. We are wiping out this evil. We are pushing forward this population educated about the ‘main camp’,” Eliyahu said last week.
On Sunday, Israeli forces launched a daily “tactical pause” in parts of Gaza, in an apparent attempt to distract attention from its hunger starce campaign, establishing a new aid corridor. Airdrops in northern Gaza have also resumed. This is a movement that caused a strong repulsion.
About 12 Palestinians were injured in aid airdrops in northern Gaza when one of the pallets fell directly into the tent where the displaced people live.
Aiders explain that airdrops are inefficient and unsafe. Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa, said, “Airdrops are a last resort. They are expensive, random and dangerous. The only serious solution is to allow aid trucks on a large scale.”
The Euromed Human Rights Monitor has denounced the Air Force, calling them “humiliating and ineffective” in dealing with Gaza’s deep hunger star. He emphasized that only a sufficient amount of land corridor openings can meet the needs of the besieged population.
The group described the airdrop as “a different layer of Palestinian humiliation and a tool of hunger designed.”
“We are warning that we will use these drops as distractions to distract rising international pressure,” the monitor added.
Hamas has repeatedly criticised, saying that he views Israel’s airdrop operation and Gaza’s limited humanitarian corridor as “a symbolic, deceptive move aimed at whitening its image before the world.”
In a statement on Sunday, Hamas said: “Israel is eliminating international demands to lift the siege and end the hunger campaign against Palestinians,” he says, calling it “part of a calculated policy to manage hunger, impose forced reality, and make civilians the subject of danger and humiliation.”
“The arrival of food and medicines to Gaza is not a favor. It is a natural right and an urgent need to stop the catastrophe imposed by occupations like the Nazi.”
Observers say the Israeli resort to support airdrops is an effort to obscure its growing international isolation. The US has been accused of enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza – last year adopted the same tactics to hide complicity in the conflict.
In June 2024, Israeli forces reportedly raided the Nusai Rat camp, hiding inside a humanitarian truck from the US construction port, killing nearly 300 Palestinians.
In March 2024, former President Joe Biden’s administration announced the construction of a temporary pier on Gaza’s coastline to allow humanitarian assistance to enter the territory. The move promptly raised doubts about Washington’s impure motives.
These suspicions grew deeper in June 2024 when an Israeli attack was attacked at the Nusayrat refugee camp. Nearly 300 Palestinians have been killed in order to release four Israeli prisoners. Reports say Israeli ground forces were hiding in trucks used to deliver humanitarian assistance to infiltrate camps. The truck came from an American-made port.
In effect, the aid truck, which left the port built in the United States, served as a Trojan horse that allowed Israel to massacre the Palestinians under the guise of humanitarian relief.
Both Israel and the US have acknowledged that they want to depopulate Gaza and pave the way for settlers to move in. Tactics similar to airdrops are just part of the broader strategies that many today describe as current hunger campenation and ethnic cleansing campaigns.