Last week, in a piece for GuardianNick Mainard, a volunteer surgeon in a hospital in southern Gaza, books“I have just finished working on another young teenager who suffers from malnutrition. A seven -month -old child lies in the intensive care unit for children, and she is so small and malnourishing that I initially made a mistake in the new baby. Although the phrase“ her skin and bones ”do not do justice to the way her body was. The human situation in Gaza was deteriorated, which was already clearly, with three years A person, among them twenty -five children, die from the reasons related to malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization.
With more reports and photos about comic children from Gaza, the close Israeli allies, such as France and the United Kingdom, have issued harsh criticism, describing the current humanitarian situation as a “disaster”. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, announced that his country would become the first member of the Group of Seven, which recognizes a Palestinian state, as Kiir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, promised to do so unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire. On Monday, President Trump admitted that the children were hungry. (Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to insist that there is no “hunger in Gaza”. Human rights groups It began to point out to Israel’s actions as “genocide.” The size of the crisis also caused a number of American politicians and commentators, including Defenders From the war, to claim that more assistance must be allowed to enter the region, or that the war itself has become unfair.
Amit Sejal, the chief political correspondent of Israel 12, is widely considered one of the most influential journalists in the country. Section is a prominent defender of the Netanyahu government. He wrote on topics like what he calls.Settlement violence fraudAnd the need for Annex parts of Gaza. Last week, he wrote a piece to Free press In which he said, “Gaza may approach the real hunger crisis.” “It is difficult to persuade the Israelis to do so because everything literally was told for a period of 22 months on this issue was a fantasy.” He also wrote that without storing food in Hamas, Gaza “will not face the current food shortage.” (The next day, Reuters I mentioned The analysis conducted by the United States Agency for International Development found “there is no evidence of a systematic theft” of humanitarian supplies to us by Hamas. Another reportin TimesIsraeli officials said separately that Hamas did not systematically not plundering United Nations aid, which directly contradicts a central discussion point in the Israeli war effort.)
I recently spoken on the phone with Sejal. During our conversation, which was liberated for length and clarity, we discussed his frequent opinion on whether there was hunger in Gaza, his support for Trump’s plan to develop Gaza without Palestinians, and the amount of power that the extremist right has on the Israeli government.
For Americans who may not know your work, you often talked about you as a person familiar with Netanyahu’s thinking. Are you in contact with–
Yes, this is correct. I am not the tongue of Netanyahu. I am from the right blue, but not more than this. I just talk about myself.
I just intended that people say you understood his thinking and have good sources in the government.
I will not deny that. Yes.
So tell me what caused you to write this piece to Free press He said there is a great concern about the food situation in Gaza.
Therefore, the beginning of the beginning, I don’t think there is starvation in Gaza. I want to put it first and foremost.
You don’t think there is hunger in Gaza?
I don’t think Hamas’s hunger campaign in the international media is anything that is remotely related to the truth. However, I think there is a position that can actually deteriorate into something like this. Over the past 22 months, Hamas has been running a hunger campaign in Gaza. Israelis and perhaps some Americans are concerned about these accusations because they know that it is propaganda. The fact that there is a developing crisis that does not emit Israeli decisions, but from a satirical game that Hamas and the United Nations play. However, Israel will be blamed. That is why I want Israel to be wise, not just.
Just to be clear, your article talks about the “hunger crisis” in Gaza.
Growth. Growth. [The piece is titled “The Price of Flour Shows the Hunger Crisis in Gaza.”]
There are reports on the death of hunger in Gaza. Do you deny these?
I doubt ninety percent of it. I cannot tell you that it is not present in specific places or specific people, but I do not think that the numbers of Hamas and the international media are the numbers.
One of the things your article says is that, mainly throughout the war, there were wrong warnings about the hunger crisis. Why do you think the warnings were wrong before?
Hamas tried to shoot a picture that did not exist. There was no hunger in Gaza. For years, Hamas claimed that Gaza was starving. Hamas has always used the alleged hunger weapon to obtain more humanitarian aid. [A U.N. study from 2022, prior to the war, found that more than three-quarters of Palestinian families reduced the number of meals they consumed because of a lack of food.]
the Times I mentioned “At least 20 Palestinian children have died due to malnutrition and drought.” So we do not deny that people have died, right?
No, we do not deny that people died. We are not sure that people died of drought or hunger.
This report, which I just conveyed was from March 2024.
Show. I beg the difference with New York Times Because New York Times The rules of its reports on Hamas sources. New York Times It depends greatly on the strings in Gaza, which has two options: either to report what Hamas wants or die, and New York blames Times For this. Head of the Legal Department in New York Times Tell me, how can you blame us for writing what Hamas wants? Journalists died because in the past they reported things that Hamas had not liked.
This person told you this in the record?
They wanted to sue me when they claimed that they relied on the applicants who collaborated with Hamas.
So they told you this separately?
Yes. You can quote it. [David McCraw, the lead newsroom lawyer at the Times, was identified to me later by Segal as the person who allegedly said this. McCraw told The New Yorker, “I never said any of that. We never threatened to sue him. And our journalists have not been killed by Hamas.” In 2023, McCraw asked Segal to make corrections to some statements he had made on social media, including that the Times employed “ISIS-embedded stringers.”] Therefore, even if we take into account the fact that twenty children died due to drought, which I doubt any doubts about the IDF, there is no way to check this. [In the past several days, a number of news organizations have called on Israel to allow international reporters to enter Gaza, something that it has thus far largely restricted them from doing.] What could make hunger in Gaza is the uncomfortable alliance between the United Nations and Hamas. Each organization in Gaza must pay at least fifteen to twenty percent of humanitarian aid directly to Hamas pockets.