From Netanyahu's Deceitful UN Speech on Gaza, a Terrible Truth Emerges
Netanyahu's speech at the UN was packed with rhetorical tricks and gimmicks: waving signs, a childish quiz, a publicity stunt about broadcasting the speech to phones in Gaza, speaking in Hebrew – supposedly to the hostages – and more. But it was also full of white lies, half-truths, and outright falsehoods.
Netanyahu repeated the claim that the ratio of civilians to militants killed by the IDF in Gaza is "less than 2:1." However, the prime minister presented no evidence for this figure, which contradicts all data regarding the identities of those killed in the Strip.
A long list of researchers, organizations and journalistic investigations have determined that Netanyahu's figure is baseless. The actual ratio is at least five civilians for every militant, and likely much higher. According to data recently published by the media and organizations monitoring the situation in Gaza, the ratio stands between 8:1 and 10:1.
Analyzing the gap between the number of militants the IDF itself has declared killed in the past six months and the number of deaths reported by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza – a figure accepted worldwide – the ratio is 5:1. A demographic breakdown from the ministry's lists shows that the proportion of women and children among the dead is twice as high as in any other modern war – 46 percent – compared to 17 percent in Iraq, 20 percent in Syria and less than 1 percent in Ukraine.
As usual, Netanyahu provided no evidence for the figure he cited. In fact, it's doubtful he could, since the "Iron Swords" war is the first in which Israel has not released an official figure for the number of civilian deaths on the other side. On the other hand, dozens of investigations conducted throughout the war have repeatedly revealed two decisive facts in the debate about the conflict.
The IDF, particularly the Israel Air Force, kills dozens of civilians daily, often providing either no explanations for the deaths or weak justifications.
On Saturday, Reuters published an investigation exposing how easily the IDF killed 22 journalists and medical staff at Nasser Hospital at the end of August, merely to destroy a press camera suspected of being used by Hamas. Reuters claims that the camera belonged to the news agency and was in use by one of its journalists.
The second fact concerns how the IDF counts dead militants. The military inflates the number by defining as a militant any civilian who crosses into a kill zone, whose imaginary, invisible borders are drawn by the commanders on the ground.
Additionally, the IDF counts all those who worked in Hamas's civil administration as members of the organization's military wing. Either way, there is no doubt today that the proportion of civilian deaths in Gaza is far higher than the numbers Netanyahu presented.
Later in his speech, the prime minister sought to directly address the accusation that Israel is committing genocide. "I want to ask you a simple question," Netanyahu said in another rhetorical flourish, "Would a country committing genocide plead with the civilian population it is supposedly targeting to get out of harm's way?"
"Did the Nazis ask the Jews to leave?" Netanyahu continued. "You want me to name all the genocidal leaders of history? Just go one by one. Did anyone do this? Did they say 'get out so we can come in'? Of course not."
In reality, the answer is "yes." In genocide studies, there is a broad consensus that there is no contradiction between committing genocide and expelling the civilian population. In the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia, women and children were allowed to leave, and the Armenian genocide actually began with mass deportations. According to Dr. Shmuel Lederman, a genocide expert, in Darfur, Burma, and other places, large portions of the population were also allowed to leave. "It's nonsense, because ethnic cleansing and genocide often go hand in hand," he says.
Netanyahu went on to say that the accusation that Israel starved Gaza is "a joke." He detailed the quantities of food Israel allowed into the Strip since the start of the war, saying: "Two million tons of food and aid," or one ton per person, equating to 3,000 daily calories per person. "Some starvation policy!" he sarcastically remarked.
This, too, is a blatant lie. Israel absolutely did starve Gaza – and even boasted about it. On March 2, the Prime Minister led a discussion in which it was decided to halt the entry of food and aid into the Strip.
Netanyahu announced this on camera, and his senior partners celebrated the decision. "An important step in the right direction. A precipice to the 'gates of hell,'" Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared at the time. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel should bomb food storage facilities in Gaza and ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Energy Minister Eli Cohen, from Netanyahu's own party, also ordered the shutdown of electricity to the last functioning desalination plant in the Strip, which supplied water to residents.
The starvation lasted 78 days, during which the UN's food distribution network in Gaza collapsed, and when food deliveries resumed, they were minimal and failed to halt the worsening hunger. By the end of July, mass deaths from starvation began.
To date, about 450 people have died from malnutrition in the Strip, about a third of them children. Their deaths were a direct result of the policies of Netanyahu and his ministers. The numbers Netanyahu cites regarding the amount of food and aid brought into Gaza are likely accurate, but they include not only food, but everything that entered the Strip – tents, generators, medical equipment, caravans, portable toilets and more.
Most of the population lives in tents without electricity or running water, all infrastructure is destroyed, and residents are entirely dependent on items brought in from outside the enclave – from mattresses to medicine. Taking these facts into account, half a ton per person per year doesn't sound like such a large number.
Netanyahu's argument that the number of calories entering the Strip should be sufficient for the population also does not reflect the reality on the ground. The fact that a sufficient number of calories enter Gaza does not mean there is no hunger, especially after Israel dismantled the UN's aid distribution system.
In Gaza, as everywhere, there are social disparities – some people manage to access food, while others cannot. Sometimes those left hungry are orphans, single mothers, the elderly, people with chronic illnesses, etc. Most often, they are simply poor.
Mass hunger does not mean the entire population is starving to death, but that a certain percentage suffers from extreme hunger, leading to widespread illness and death. That is exactly what happened in the Strip. The government essentially admitted this, and when mass hunger began, Israel eased restrictions on food entry, and the nutritional situation improved. Deaths now continue to be recorded among those already suffering from severe malnutrition.
Netanyahu continued with another falsehood, claiming that Hamas seized the food entering the Strip and profited from it. There is no evidence for this claim. In fact, anyone familiar with the situation on the ground knows this is unlikely.
There is no doubt that Hamas steals food for its members, and that the last people to go hungry in Gaza are those with weapons. But the leap from this to controlling the food market is a big one. To control Gaza's food market, Hamas would need massive warehouses and a fleet of trucks.
To date, the IDF has not seized any large Hamas food warehouse. The New York Times published an investigation based on sources within the IDF, who admitted that Hamas did not steal a significant amount of the food brought in by the UN.
USAID, the American government agency, reached the same conclusion. The analysis found that at least 44 of the 156 incidents where aid supplies were reported stolen or lost were "either directly or indirectly" due to Israeli military actions, according to the briefing slides.
Later, Netanyahu claimed that the UN admitted "that Hamas and other armed groups looted 85 percent of the trucks." In reality, the UN claims that, as a result of the starvation policy, Gaza's residents were driven to such food desperation that they resorted to extreme actions.
Tens of thousands of residents risked their lives daily to obtain food – some at the failed distribution centers of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which Netanyahu helped establish, and some by looting aid trucks. In the vast majority of cases, the looters were hungry people stealing a sack of food for their families, and there is no evidence that Hamas stole large quantities of food from the UN.
At the end of his speech, Netanyahu planted another blatant lie by calling Israel under his leadership "a beacon of progress, ingenuity, innovation for the benefit of all humanity." There is no need to elaborate on why such a statement reflects a distorted perception of reality.
Amid the lies, a terrible truth also emerged – the war, as far as Netanyahu is concerned, will continue. This can be inferred from the fact that he called Gaza City "the last Hamas stronghold" in his speech, and then quickly corrected himself: "one of the two last strongholds."
The apparent confusion and correction appear in the official version of the speech sent by the Prime Minister's Office. Here, there are no mistakes. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, he intends to continue fighting toward the next stronghold – whether it be the camps in the central Gaza Strip or the massive encampment in Muwasi in the southwestern Strip, it doesn't really matter. The main thing is to keep going.