WhatsappTo prove its claim, the newspaper published an alarming op-ed by an international “hunger researcher” and a picture of an emaciated child.
(Aug. 10, 2025 / JNS)
The Israeli left-wing newspaper, Haaretz, continues to dedicate its pages to its claims of “mass starvation” in the Gaza Strip. Recently, a so-called “famine researcher” named Alex de Waal was recruited to bolster the claim. And indeed, with a somber expression and deep moral anguish, he was compelled to accuse Israel of the grave crime of mass starvation of more than two million Gazans.
Such a serious accusation, coming from an impartial and independent “expert,” indeed sounds like a real problem for Israel. However, even a quick and superficial examination of de Waal’s history of claims casts a heavy shadow over the credibility of his accusation, as he is a known Israel-hater and a serial accuser of Israel for “starving Gaza” throughout the war.
As early as Jan. 2024, just two months after the beginning of the IDF’s operation in the Gaza Strip, de Waal published his first warning about Israel’s horrific crime of starvation. He reiterated his warning in Feb. 2024. And repeated it in early March 2024.
It should be noted that in early March, a COGAT report was published, proving that the amount of food entering Gaza was 80% higher than the amount entering before the war, thus refuting de Waal’s claim. De Waal was not impressed and in April, 2024, he provided another warning. And another in June 2024.
During the same month, his claims were refuted by the Famine Review Committee (FRC), whose experts concluded that “the available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring.”
A month later, in July 2024, de Waal’s claims of famine in Gaza were debunked again, this time by a group of Israeli researchers.
De Waal decided to take a short time off, but in Jan. 2025 he reiterated the starvation accusation, this time in Haaretz. A month later, in Feb. 2025, de Waal published another report. And another in May 2025. And then came the latest warning in July 2025.
Was Gaza truly suffering from Israeli-caused starvation throughout the war? Clearly not. Numerous reports, including those from the United Nations itself, have refuted this allegation. So, what could be the reason for de Waal’s obsession with Israel? Could it be that he is simply an Israel hater?
A hint of his fundamentally hostile stance toward Israel was given by de Waal in June 2020, three years before the war. At that time, in an entirely different context regarding Israel’s activities in Africa, he accused Israel of apartheid, racism against Ethiopian immigrants, criminally blocking borders against millions of African infiltrators, cynically leveraging the Israeli lobby in Washington to support negative forces in Africa and even backing terrorism in Africa.
In other words, even without connection to the false claim of Israel “starving” the residents of the Gaza Strip, de Waal is an antisemitic, Israel hater. The question of why Haaretz specifically relies on him to substantiate its false accusation of Israel causing starvation leads us to the next issue: the images of the emaciated child, Muhammad al-Matouq.
In late July, a prominent front-page image in both Haaretz and The New York Times featured the child in his mother’s arms, serving as a stark visual symbol for the starvation claim. (The two newspapers have a distribution partnership in Israel.) Before him, an emaciated Gazan boy named Osama al-Rakab had been presented as a poster child for alleged famine in both international mainstream media and on social media networks.
It soon became clear the extent of Hamas’s infinite and ugly cynicism. Both sickly children—whose families admitted they suffer from genetic diseases, cerebral palsy, oxygen deficiency and cystic fibrosis, with their extreme thinness being a symptom of their hidden underlying conditions and who, just a month earlier, had been transferred by Israel for medical treatment in Italy—were unwillingly turned into symbols of Hamas’s false starvation campaign.
The conclusion is clear: the scarcity of authentic evidence for Israel’s alleged deliberate “starvation” of the residents of the Gaza Strip forces Haaretz to rely on dubious sources. For this reason, Haaretz takes care to present what it describes as Israel’s “war crimes” as “reports” received from “sources” and “authorities” in Gaza, meaning that they originated from Hamas terrorists and the Hamas authorities.
If there truly was “starvation,” the newspaper would have interviewed impartial experts and published images of healthy children suffering from malnutrition due to the IDF’s actions, rather than an Israel hater who has been claiming starvation for 20 consecutive months and emaciated children suffering from underlying medical conditions.
Haaretz is waging a campaign against Israel. There isn’t even a single ounce of real journalism in this propaganda campaign, nor are there any red lines.
