Published: 17 September 2025
Last updated: 17 September 2025
A stream of images of starving children in the Gaza Strip have captured the world’s attention, deepening anger over Israel’s actions in the territory and furthering its isolation among nations.
But the narrative is different inside Israel. The story of hunger in Gaza has hardly registered compared with other crises and tragedies: the grinding announcements of the deaths of young Israeli soldiers; the political upheaval over the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jews from the draft and government’s efforts to fire key democratic and professional gatekeepers; the haunting videos of emaciated young hostages, one forced to dig his own grave on camera, after nearly two years in hellish captivity.
Worse than showing indifference, many Israelis deny the clear realities: that Gaza is in chaos and teetering on the edge of widespread starvation, and that Israel has played a major role in bringing about this terrible state.
The attitude is projected from the top. “There is no starvation in Gaza,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has declared. In a news conference last month he blamed Hamas and the international media for perpetuating a “global campaign of lies.” He added that “the only ones being deliberately starved” are the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
This sentiment is widely shared in Israel. A poll in late July found that almost 80 percent of Jewish Israelis believe that Israel is making an effort to avoid causing suffering to Gazans. The same percentage — though primarily on the right and centre — said they are not troubled by reports of famine.
Wilful blindness
While indications are growing that the tragedy is starting to register among Israelis, the wilful blindness of much of Israeli society must be discarded for Israel to begin pulling itself out of the quagmire in Gaza and repairing its own tattered image. The first step to resolving a problem is admitting there is one.
Comments4
Ramon Capel21 September at 05:00 pm
Clearly, those who believe that this will change are mistaken. Dignity and morality are easily lost and cannot be recovered. We have lost credibility in the eyes of the rest of humanity, which rightly accuses us of not having raised our voices.
This is not a war, unless it is in medieval terms. Locking up a population and shooting them is a massacre, and a crime unworthy of the values we demand of others.
Ian Light20 September at 11:11 pm
The Hatikva is Israel’s Anthem and is the Anthem of Hope .
The Jewish people wanted a Secure Homeland in those parts of the Ancient Land that were undeveloped and with few people .
They wanted millions of Jewish People in the Homeland to escape Genocide .
No Arab People needed to be displaced from the land promised to Abraham’s peoples .
League of Nations British Mandated Palestine could have had millions of Jewish People millions of Arabic People and millions of International Humanists by early 1939 all united and armed to defend Humanitarian Values .
Nunya18 September at 10:06 pm
Too late. The mask has slipped and the whole entire world has seen what Israel truly is and no amount of hasbara can un-do the damage. Tell yourselves whatever you need to feel better, the clear truth is Israel has been the land-thieving bad guy who’s intention from day one was to steal the land by physical force and kill and oppress anyone who rightfully resisted that injustice. It really is that simple. Everyone sees it now.
David Jackson18 September at 07:33 am
This is war, I’m not immune from the images from Gaza. I have to pick a side. Bring the hostages home.