Dear Gazans: If There's No Flour, Then Eat Blood and Lies - Opinion - Haaretz.com
Gideon Levy Jun 8, 2025 Ha'aretz
The terrible blood libel involving blood, flour and lies is etched forever into the history of the Jewish people. Now the narrative is reversed, to blood, flour and Israel's lies.
The blood and flour can be seen in a photograph from Gaza that was published this weekend: It shows a mangled corpse with flour scattered over it mixed with the blood on the body into a horrific, pink-hued paste. The face of the deceased is covered with a tattered jacket; he was one of dozens who were killed at the food distribution center in Gaza that the Israel Defense Forces turned into another death zone.
The lies about the blood and the flour were dispensed by the IDF spokesperson and his submissive shills: most Israeli military correspondents. An investigation by Haaretz that determined, based on video footage, eyewitness testimony and changes to the army's version of events, that the IDF is responsible for the shootings that killed dozens, as well as an investigation by CNN, refuted these lies, one by one. We are left, then, with blood, flour and lies. We cannot remain silent about them.
Last Sunday, dozens of people were shot dead in the aid line to get food. The IDF spokesperson claimed that the fatal incident "simply didn't happen!" Whether or not it did, at least 35 people were killed and 170 injured in a line filled with desperation.
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In the morning, the IDF tried to claim that its forces did not fire at civilians near or within the aid site, but by evening it conceded that soldiers had fired "warning shots" about 1 kilometer (1,100 yards) from the aid center and "there is no connection to the fatalities in the area."
Palestinian rescuers arrive in an ambulance to evacuate injured people after an Israeli drone reportedly opened fire on civilian gatherings near an aid distribution point, on Sunday.Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP
The lies became insults to the intelligence. The place where the people were killed was within what was defined as the area of the compound. The foundation operating the facility joined the cover-up: "These fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas."
Anyone who has been following the events in Gaza in good faith has known from the very beginning that the soldiers are the ones who slaughtered the starving civilians, unless the latter died by suicide in droves.
Since the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank in 2022, through the killing of 15 paramedics in Rafah in March, and up to this massacre, it is already clear that the statements of the IDF spokesperson should be considered false until proved otherwise. A rare occurrence.
When it comes to war crimes, the likelihood of hearing a word of truth from the IDF, especially in the hours immediately following the incident, when it's still possible to spread lies, is negligible to nonexistent. Israel and its media are not particularly troubled by this; after all, everyone wants to live in the pleasant, addictive lie of the military's morality.
Palestinians carry supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the southern Gaza Strip in May.Credit: Hatem Khaled/Reuters
But this time it didn't work. The investigation by Jeremy Diamond and his colleagues was a gut punch to the lies of the military and the media in Israel. Nir Dvori – a generic Israeli name for a generic Israeli journalist – go learn the basics of journalism from Diamond. At least attend an introductory lesson, so you can begin to understand your role as a journalist.
Even Ilana Dayan could learn a chapter on investigation from Diamond: Investigative journalism isn't only about wringing saccharine, patriotic, militaristic emotions from the audience, especially in wartime. Not a single investigation of the kind that CNN did has been aired on Israeli television.
Diamond brought 17 eyewitness accounts, ballistic examination of ammunition found in the bodies of the dead and analysis of the sounds of the gunfire, all proving that the source of the gunfire was machine guns exclusively in the hands of the IDF. Eyewitnesses reported being shot at from tanks, helicopters, drones and the sea. Not even the most "Levantine" imagination could attribute this massacre to anyone but the IDF. But the IDF ignored the background noise that, in any event, was only heard abroad and continued to slaughter the starving.
Ameen Khalifa, who on Sunday crawled on the sand, terrified by the gunfire, and told CNN, "We are bringing our food, drenched in blood, we are dying to get food," was shot dead Tuesday, two days later. He was 30 and starving when he died. This time, the army invented a new lie: The soldiers felt threatened. The distribution of food, which had turned into the distribution of blood, was suspended for a few days.
If there's no flour, then eat blood, dear Gazans, blood, flour and lies.