United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer referred Monday to “images of starving children” in Gaza — many of which are misleading, proving the success of a strategy pursued by Hamas and anti-Israel media outlets.
While all agree — including Israel — that there is a need for humanitarian aid in Gaza, the Israeli military and government say there is no starvation in Gaza. Shortages of food, such as they are, are the result of Hamas looting and hoarding aid, and the United Nations lacking the will or capacity to distribute aid, Israel says.
Regardless, As Breitbart News noted, many mainstream media outlets ran images of emaciated Palestinian children who actually had other problems. One widespread image showed a child who had a muscle disorder. Another showed a child with cystic fibrosis — whom Israel had helped leave Gaza for treatment in Italy.
Still, Starmer said Monday during a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in Scotland: “Certainly, speaking for the British public and myself, seeing those images of starving children in particular are revolting, and there’s a sense of revulsion in the British public at what they’re seeing, and they know and we know that humanitarian aid needs to get in at speed, at volume.” “What they’re seeing,” however, was something other than what is actually real.
Trump also referred to the images: “We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are — that’s real starvation stuff. I see it. And you can’t fake that.”
The fact is that the images can, in fact, be faked — or presented without a full set of facts. Hamas has tried — and evidently succeeded — to portray images of Palestinian suffering, which imply Israeli brutality. That, in turn, creates increased international pressure on Israel. It also relieves pressure on Hamas — a fact that Israeli government spokesman David Mencer alluded to in a briefing for reporters on Monday.
Mencer said that the recent global outcry over supposed starvation in Gaza had convinced Hamas that it did not have to make a deal with Israel for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, and could obtain better terms by waiting.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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