International accusations against Israel regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza have dominated headlines and legal proceedings throughout the ongoing conflict. These claims, centered on allegations of deliberate starvation and weaponized famine, have formed the basis for some of the most serious international legal challenges Israel has faced, including proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC). However, mounting evidence suggests these accusations rest on fundamentally flawed data and biased reporting methodologies.
The Current Legal and Diplomatic Landscape
The allegations against Israel are severe and far-reaching. At the ICJ, where South Africa filed a case under the Genocide Convention, judges have issued provisional measures based largely on UN reports and famine predictions. The court proceedings have repeatedly cited claims that Israel was implementing a policy of deliberate starvation, with judges referencing UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s statements that Gaza faced “catastrophic” conditions representing “the highest number of people facing hunger ever recorded by the IPC.”
Similarly, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, explicitly referencing the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) findings about “catastrophic hunger” affecting 1.1 million people in Gaza. These legal proceedings have been accompanied by widespread diplomatic pressure, with European governments and, notably for the first time, the White House criticizing Israel’s handling of humanitarian aid.
The humanitarian narrative has been further amplified by reports of increasing child malnutrition. Recent UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) data indicated that 9 percent of children under five screened in Gaza clinics were suffering from severe malnutrition, compared to 6 percent a month prior. Hamas-controlled health ministry officials have claimed unprecedented death tolls from starvation, with reports of 20 people dying from hunger in a 48-hour period and total starvation deaths reaching 88 people, including 78 children, since the war began.
Former Gaza Aid Spokesman Blames Hamas and UN for Worsening Humanitarian Crisis
Israeli director and restaurateur Shahar Segal, who briefly served as the spokesperson for the American aid foundation Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), accused both Hamas and the United Nations of worsening the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
In an interview with Kan Reshet Bet, Segal challenged reports of famine in Gaza, emphasizing that information from the area is tightly controlled. “Nothing coming out of Gaza is factual,” he said. “There are no foreign journalists in Gaza; all information coming out of there essentially passes through the Hamas filter. I’m not saying there’s no hunger — I’m just saying let’s put it in perspective.”
GHF, the foundation Segal represented, is one of the few organizations actively distributing food in Gaza. Segal stated that GHF is managing to get around 50 trucks of aid into the Strip each day. However, he claimed that another 50 trucks remain idle in UN warehouses. “The UN refuses to distribute the food because it won’t allow the IDF to secure the convoys and is demanding a ceasefire,” he said. “To ensure food security for Gaza’s residents, around 100 trucks a day are needed.”
Segal also accused the UN of blocking aid for political reasons. “It’s a political organization with its own interests, and it does things the way it thinks things need to be done,” he said. “It’s shutting off the flow of massive amounts of US funding and food, which ultimately don’t reach the Gazan population.”
According to Segal, the current aid system is helping Hamas, not civilians. “The terror organization’s entire war economy is based on only one thing — food,” he said. “If you want to prolong the war indefinitely, keep transferring food through Hamas-controlled channels.”
He also addressed chaotic scenes at food distribution centers, saying the real issue is not famine but fear. “More than there is hunger in Gaza, there is what we call food insecurity — people who think that they won’t have food tomorrow,” he said. “The moment you open the door, 50,000 people line up. Anyone imagining some ‘European-style’ orderly scene doesn’t understand Gaza.”
Segal concluded by describing how Hamas weaponized the aid effort itself. “This situation ran into a very efficient Hamas influence machine, a complete refusal on the part of the UN to cooperate, and tragedies that occurred not at the distribution points, but on the way to the distribution points,” he said.
Israel’s Response: Challenging the Narrative
Israeli officials have consistently disputed these claims, arguing that they represent a systematic distortion of reality designed to damage Israel’s international standing. Colonel Abdullah Halabi, head of COGAT’s Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza, recently stated that approximately 1,000 trucks worth of aid were piled up inside Gaza, awaiting collection by UN agencies and aid groups. He attributed delays to “a lack of cooperation from the international community and international organizations.”
According to Israeli data, the state has facilitated humanitarian aid “beyond the standards of international law, without restriction,” expanding the Kerem Shalom Crossing and opening three additional terminals in northern and central Gaza. Israeli officials characterize Hamas’s “famine narrative” as a deliberate campaign designed to improve the terrorist organization’s position in hostage negotiations rather than genuinely address humanitarian needs.
The Israeli Defense Forces have maintained that “no real hunger crisis exists in Gaza,” citing daily surveillance and inspections by COGAT. Military officials assert that food distribution centers, despite sometimes requiring crowd control measures, are successfully keeping aid out of Hamas hands and preventing resources from strengthening the terrorist organization. They note that about half of food aid enters northern Gaza via trucks, where some looting still occurs, unlike in the four designated distribution centers in central and southern Gaza.
Methodological Flaws in International Reporting
Research by the Institute for National Security Studies has revealed significant discrepancies between UN and Israeli data on humanitarian aid flows. The analysis exposed fundamental problems with how international organizations collect and present information about Gaza’s humanitarian situation.
The most striking finding involved massive gaps in aid truck counts. In May 2024, OCHA reported 2,790 aid trucks entering Gaza while COGAT recorded 6,359 trucks—a discrepancy of nearly 4,000 trucks in a single month. Over the entire period from the war’s beginning through June, the total gap reached almost 10,000 trucks, with UN figures showing 28,818 trucks compared to COGAT’s 38,212.
These discrepancies stem from fundamental methodological limitations in UN data collection. Since October 7, 2023, UNRWA has been responsible for collecting humanitarian aid data on behalf of the UN, but only records trucks they directly observe at Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings. This approach systematically excludes several major aid categories: air-dropped supplies, sea deliveries including the US floating pier, aid through the northern Erez crossing where UNRWA representatives aren’t stationed, private sector goods, deliveries when UNRWA staff aren’t present, and fuel and gas supplies.
In contrast, COGAT reports comprehensive data on all aid entering Gaza through every route and source, including aid from other countries, UN agencies, NGOs, private sector goods, and deliveries by air, sea, and all land crossings. The Israeli system provides detailed breakdowns by aid type, quantity, and entry route, offering transparency that UN reports have historically lacked.
The Collapse of Famine Predictions
Perhaps the most damaging blow to the international narrative came through the systematic failure of famine predictions. The IPC’s March 2024 report predicted that famine would occur in northern Gaza between March and May 2024, classifying the area as Phase 5 (“famine”)—the most severe category requiring evidence of at least two deaths per day for every 10,000 people from starvation.
The report projected that 50 percent of Gaza’s population (1.11 million people) would face “catastrophic conditions,” with over 20,000 deaths from hunger expected by mid-2024. However, as of early June 2024, the UN World Health Organization had documented only 32 deaths from acute malnutrition, including 28 children—a tragic but dramatically smaller number than the thousands predicted.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) conducted a comprehensive analysis that definitively refuted claims that famine had occurred in Gaza. Their investigation found that famine declarations were based on misclassified data, flawed assumptions, and critical omissions. The IPC had used an incorrect pre-war baseline for acute malnutrition, claiming it was just 1 percent when it was actually 4 percent, making modest post-war increases appear dramatically worse than reality.
By late 2024, MUAC (Mid-Upper Arm Circumference) data showed Gaza’s malnutrition rate at approximately 5 percent—only slightly above pre-war levels and well below famine thresholds. The IPC and FEWS NET had also failed to account for food supplied through commercial sources and private sector deliveries, particularly in northern Gaza, while using inflated population estimates that worsened apparent per-capita food shortages.
Institutional Corrections and Reversals
The credibility of international famine assessments suffered a severe blow when the IPC’s own Famine Review Committee (FRC) quietly reversed earlier predictions in June 2024. The FRC acknowledged that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine thresholds have been passed” for both northern and southern Gaza, noting that “extreme levels of malnutrition have not yet led to a 2/10,000/day Crude Death Rate” and that non-trauma deaths remained below famine thresholds.
Following the FRC findings, the IPC published a revised report concluding that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring.” The percentage of population classified as being in catastrophic conditions was dramatically reduced from 50 percent to 22 percent (from 1.11 million to 495,000 people). Notably, the June report began incorporating data from sources including COGAT, leading to more comprehensive and accurate assessments.
This reversal was particularly significant because the March 2024 famine predictions had been extensively cited in ICJ and ICC proceedings. The same Famine Review Committee that issued warnings heavily referenced in international legal cases was forced to acknowledge that famine was not occurring and that earlier projections had ignored key sources of food and humanitarian aid.
Systematic Bias in UN Reporting
Analysis of UN reporting methods revealed multiple layers of bias and methodological failures beyond simple data collection problems. The UN consistently ignored Israeli data without providing justification while placing absolute reliance on sources within Gaza that maintain close contact with Hamas or operate under its control. These sources include the Ministry of Health and Government Media Office, whose credibility has been questioned given previous inflated casualty figures that the UN later had to revise.
UN reports consistently presented cases of aid cancellation, delay, and denial as solely Israel’s responsibility while ignoring the complexity of operating in a war zone and Hamas’s hostile actions affecting aid distribution. Reports failed to mention Hamas’s control over convoy routes and distribution points, cases of aid looting by Hamas and criminal gangs, Hamas attacks on humanitarian infrastructure and border crossings, and the terrorist organization’s use of rocket fire to force crossing closures.
The presentation of data itself was manipulative, with OCHA using daily averages since the war’s beginning rather than weekly or monthly figures, which obscured significant increases in aid over time. The UN also misleadingly compared current aid truck numbers to pre-war figures without clarifying that the pre-war baseline included all trucks (construction materials, commercial goods, textiles) rather than just humanitarian aid, which comprised only about 100 of the approximately 500 daily pre-war trucks.
Current Situation on the Ground
Recent developments have further undermined the starvation narrative. Israeli officials report that 4,500 trucks entered Gaza in the two months preceding July 2025, carrying comprehensive supplies from personal humanitarian aid to medical equipment and hygiene supplies. Despite ongoing challenges, COGAT data indicates that humanitarian aid exceeds minimum requirements, with approximately 1,000 trucks worth of supplies awaiting collection inside Gaza due to distribution challenges rather than supply shortages.
The Israeli military maintains that Hamas is conducting an “intense and violent campaign” against humanitarian aid mechanisms, including attacks on new distribution sites run by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. These attacks, according to Israeli officials, are designed to “create chaos and create a reality in which the humanitarian situation is depicted poorly” to improve Hamas’s negotiating position in hostage talks.
International Implications and Consequences
The systematic distortion of Gaza’s humanitarian situation has had profound consequences for Israel’s international standing and legal position. Flawed UN reports and failed famine predictions formed the foundation for the most serious international accusations against a democratic nation in recent history, including charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
These accusations have strengthened Israel’s enemies, particularly Hamas and Iran, while Israel faces military threats on multiple fronts from Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen. The distorted narrative has provided diplomatic cover for terrorist organizations and their state sponsors while undermining international efforts to address the genuine humanitarian challenges facing Gaza’s civilian population.
The credibility crisis extends beyond Israel-specific issues to broader questions about international institutional reliability. When organizations like the UN and IPC systematically present incomplete, biased, or subsequently disproven information as authoritative fact, they undermine their own legitimacy and the international legal framework they claim to uphold.
Conclusion: The Need for Accurate Assessment
While Gaza undeniably faces significant humanitarian challenges due to ongoing conflict, the evidence strongly suggests that claims of deliberate Israeli starvation policies and widespread famine are fundamentally unfounded. The systematic reversal of famine predictions, dramatic discrepancies in aid data, and methodological failures in international reporting paint a picture of institutional bias rather than objective humanitarian assessment.
The case highlights the dangers of basing serious legal and diplomatic accusations on incomplete or politically motivated reporting. Professional legal officials at the ICJ and ICC, tasked with evaluating allegations against Israel, must examine all relevant evidence, including Israeli data and the documented failures of international reporting mechanisms.
Moving forward, the international community must demand greater transparency, accuracy, and neutrality from organizations claiming to provide authoritative humanitarian assessments. The stakes are too high—both for accurate understanding of humanitarian crises and for the integrity of international legal institutions—to accept the systematic distortions that have characterized reporting on Gaza’s humanitarian situation.
The evidence suggests that while genuine humanitarian needs exist in Gaza, the narrative of deliberate Israeli starvation represents a calculated campaign of disinformation that has corrupted international legal proceedings and diplomatic discourse. Recognizing this reality is essential for developing effective, honest approaches to addressing the legitimate humanitarian challenges facing civilians in Gaza while maintaining the integrity of international institutions and legal frameworks.
