Netanyahu’s 'no starvation in Gaza' statement contradicts extensive evidence of hunger crisis

As images of emaciated Gazans dominated global news, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a gathering of evangelical Christians that Palestinians weren’t starving. 

"Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza," Netanyahu said July 27 at a Jerusalem event sponsored by the American Christian television network Daystar. "What a bold-faced lie. There is no policy of starvation in Gaza. And there is no starvation in Gaza."

Israeli Army spokesperson Effie Defrin similarly told NPR on July 27 that photos showing dire conditions in Gaza are part of a campaign distributed by Hamas to create "an image of starvation, which doesn’t exist." 

The remarks came the same day the Israeli military began limited 10-hour pauses in daily fighting in three populated areas of Gaza in order to increase the amount of humanitarian aid that could enter the war-torn area.

Starting in March, Israel blocked all humanitarian aid for two and a half months. On May 19, under international pressure, Israel partially lifted the blockade. Still, aid groups said the aid allowed into Gaza wasn’t enough, The Associated Press reported.

Gazans are starving — 74 people have died of malnutrition in 2025, 63 of them in July, the United Nations reports, and thousands more are at risk. The hunger crisis is well documented in images, by United Nations data, news reports, first-person accounts and information from humanitarian organizations working in Gaza. 

International authorities and humanitarian groups use various terms — hunger crisis, starvation, malnutrition, acute food insecurity — and classifications to discuss the disaster’s scale. 

But there is widespread agreement among those groups that Gazans are dying because they don’t have food.

When asked whether he agreed with Netanyahu’s statement, President Donald Trump said "not particularly." Based on what he’d seen on television, "children look very hungry," Trump said July 28. 

"Some of those kids are — that’s real starvation stuff," Trump said later. "I see it, and you can’t fake that."

We contacted the U.S. Israeli embassy and received no response. 

Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City on July 26. (AP)

One-third of Gazans are not eating for days, malnutrition deaths are rising

The United Nations’ World Food Program said July 27 that one-third of Gaza’s roughly 2.1 million population had not eaten for days-long stretches. 

"Some 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions," the group said in a statement calling for a ceasefire. "Ninety thousand women and children need urgent nutrition treatment."

Severe malnutrition treatment for children requires special therapeutic feeding administered by a healthcare provider.

In May, the U.N. reported that Gaza’s population faced high levels of acute food insecurity and one in five people in Gaza faced starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, or IPC, a group of international organizations that evaluate global food emergencies.

Of the 63 malnutrition-related deaths reported in July, 24 were children under 5 years old, one was a child over age 5, and 38 were adults. 

"Most of these people were declared dead on arrival at health facilities or died shortly after, their bodies showing clear signs of severe wasting," the WHO said. 

The figure was an uptick in Gaza’s malnutrition deaths: Before July, the WHO had reported 11 malnutrition-related deaths in 2025. 

In its July 23 report, the UN’s human rights office said malnutrition in Gaza has reached "critical" levels. 

July malnutrition screenings found nearly 5,000 of 56,000 children under 5 years old were acutely malnourished in  Gaza, Deir al Balah and Khan Younis — three of the Gaza Strip’s five governing districts, or governorates. That’s about 8.9% of kids under 5.

That’s an increase from 6% in June and 2.4% in February, the report said. 

Gaza’s Ministry of Health — an agency of the region’s Hamas-controlled government — said 127 people, including 85 children, have died from hunger or malnutrition, Al Jazeera reported July 26. The agency’s figures cannot be independently verified, and the Ministry of Health is not transparent about its sources of its data or methodology. The U.N., WHO and groups that track conflict casualties cautioned against outright dismissal of the Ministry’s data, which the organizations said was fairly reliable in past conflicts. 

Palestinian women care for their malnourished babies at the Friends of the Patient Hospital in Gaza City on July 23. (AP)

Credible media reports share eye-witness accounts

News reports corroborate data showing rising hunger. 

Dozens of children and adults have starved to death in Gaza in July, The Associated Press reported. Parents bring hundreds of malnourished children into Patient’s Friends Hospital each day, and hospital staff also report hunger and exhaustion. 

A 5-month-old girl named Zainab Abu Halib died of starvation, weighing 2.2 pounds less than she did when she was born, The AP reported. She needed a special formula that isn’t available in Gaza. Hidaya Al-Motawaq, a 30-year-old widow with two children, was watching her 18-month-old starve, NPR reported. Al-Motawaq was malnourished and could no longer breastfeed him. Her baby, who the New York Times learned had pre-existing health problems, weighed less than 10 pounds. (Typical healthy weight for a toddler boy this age is around 24 pounds, World Health Organization data shows.)

A 17-year-old who was healthy before the war was in intensive care for severe malnutrition and not responding to treatment, The New York Times reported. 

Dr. Tarek Loubani, the Gaza-based medical director of Glia, an organization providing supplies and medical care, told reporters during a July 29 media briefing that all of his patients are malnourished. 

"Every single one of them is starving," Loubani said. "There is a famine everywhere and it is affecting all of us, myself included. I’ve lost probably 20 kilos in the two months that I’ve been here. … There is no food to have. Yesterday, all I had was a small handful of rice because that’s all that was available for the doctors."

The United Nations also reported that recently staff in the region were "fainting from hunger and exhaustion."

Humanitarian groups, health workers report high rates of acute malnutrition

Oxfam, a humanitarian aid group providing assistance in Gaza, and more than 100 other humanitarian organizations reported "mass starvation" on July 23.

"Oxfam staff and partners are seeing families wasting away from hunger and collapsing in the streets and malnourished children too weak to cry," James Hoobler, a humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam America, told PolitiFact. 

He said the way aid is distributed makes it increasingly inaccessible for people who are unable to walk long distances to reach distribution hubs, including those who are sick, injured or elderly and women and children. Plus, the trucks of aid being distributed each day aren’t enough, he said. 

The U.N. estimates that at least 500 to 600 aid trucks are needed each day to prevent more starvation; far fewer are arriving. 

Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, reported the highest number of malnutrition cases its teams in the Gaza Strip had ever recorded in the Gaza Strip.  

The WHO reported that in the first two weeks of July over 5,000 children under age 5 were admitted for outpatient malnutrition treatment; 18% of them had the most life-threatening form of malnutrition: severe acute malnutrition.

"This is my third time in Gaza, and I’ve never seen anything like this," said Médecins Sans Frontières’ Dr. Joanne Perry. "Mothers are asking me for food for their children, pregnant women who are six months along often weigh no more than 40 kilograms (88 pounds). The situation is beyond critical." 

Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, head of pediatrics at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, said the number of children dying of malnutrition had increased sharply in recent days, The New York Times reported July 24. 

Gaza’s last operating pediatric facility treating malnutrition suspended its program because it lacked food supplies, NPR reported.

Food distribution centers are also fraught for people seeking to safely access supplies. 

Since May 27, the Israeli military has killed 1,054 people who were trying to access food in Gaza, U.N. human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told PolitiFact. News organizations including CNN and The Associated Press reported on incidents of the military and security contractors opening fire on crowds near aid distribution centers. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli soldiers said they were ordered to fire at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid; the Israeli military denied these reports. Eighteen people also died in a July 16 stampede, the U.N. reported. 

Palestinians carry sacks of flour unloaded from a humanitarian aid convoy that reached Gaza City from the northern Gaza Strip on July 26. (AP)

Our ruling

Netanyahu said, "There is no starvation in Gaza."

U.N. data, news reports, images and reports from humanitarian groups working on the ground in Gaza rebut this. Seventy-four people, including children, have died of malnutrition in 2025 — with 63 of those deaths recorded in July alone, the WHO reported. Thousands more suffering from hunger are in danger.

The statement is ridiculously inaccurate, so we rate it Pants on Fire. 

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

UPDATE, July 30, 2025: Hidaya Al-Motawaq's 18-month-old son had preexisting health conditions before malnourishment made his condition worse, The New York Times reported.

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