Amidst accusations of an “intentional campaign of starvation” in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied that Palestinians are starving.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly denied that Palestinians are starving in the besieged Gaza Strip and accused Hamas of “stealing the food.”

Aid organizations and world leaders have criticized Israel for not allowing enough humanitarian aid into the Strip. Amongst them, the UN expert on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, said what is unfolding is an “intentional campaign of starvation” by Israel as 25 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, have already died due to starvation.

“We don’t have that kind of information. That’s not the information we have. And we monitor it closely,” Netanyahu said in response to the situation, in an interview with Axel Springer, the parent company of the Politico news website.

 He denied that starving the population was his government’s policy.

Netanyahu stated “When we started out putting in the humanitarian convoys, we said there will be one problem. And that is what if Hamas tries to steal the food and the drugs that we’re bringing for the civilian population, for its own terrorist forces?”

He added, “I think the White House said on October 19, if that happens then the international community will have to stop the aid. It’s happened. In bundles. But nobody has asked to stop the aid, and we haven’t stopped it.”

UNRWA says February registered a 50 percent reduction of humanitarian aid entering the besieged enclave compared to January. The agency blamed the “lack of political will, regular closing of the crossing points and lack of security” among the reasons for the decline.

  ‘Hamas is Stealing the Food’

Asked why more aid is not reaching Gaza by land, Netanyahu reportedly said: “Hamas is coming at gunpoint and stealing the food,” adding that “Humanitarian deaths and starvation is, for us, it’s a tragedy. For them, it’s a strategy.”

He continued: “They think that this will help them place more pressure on Israel to stop the war, leave them in place so they can repeat the October 7 massacre.”

 The US and other countries have resorted to dropping aid directly to Palestinians by air.

Special Rapporteur Fakhri has criticized this saying “This is like putting a band-aid on someone who is almost dying. It has very little immediate and long-term impact.”

He said efforts should be focused “on ensuring an immediate ceasefire by pressuring Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter unfettered and to ensure a permanent ceasefire.”

An airdrop mission on Friday killed five and injured several others when one or more parachutes failed to properly deploy in the Al Shati refugee camp, near Gaza City, according to reports.

 Israeli forces killed and wounded nearly 1,000 Palestinians when they opened fire on Gazans awaiting humanitarian aid in northern Gaza, at the end of February. The “Flour Massacre” was repeated when scores were killed and injured by Israeli shelling a few days later at the Kuwait roundabout, south of Gaza City.

Netanyahu also reportedly dismissed the idea of a ceasefire for Ramadan saying he would “like to see another hostage release.”

He said he does not see “any breakthrough in the negotiations,” because “Without a release, there’s not going to be a pause in the fighting.”

  Over 31,000 Killed

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 31,112 Palestinians have been killed, and 72,760 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

 Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’

(The Palestine Chronicle)