Blood Libel: How Hamas Exploit Infant Deaths

The Gaza Ministry of Health recently dropped a 649-page bombshell of a document, listing over 34,000 Palestinian deaths during the ongoing conflict. Among these figures, the most inflammatory is the claim that 1,500 infants under the age of one were killed. Without skipping a beat, this statistic has been weaponized by anti-Israel activists and their eager allies in the media to craft a grotesque narrative: that Israeli soldiers are running through the streets of Gaza, guns blazing, targeting babies in their cribs. Let’s call this what it is—a modern-day blood libel, as dangerous and deceitful as the ancient accusations it echoes.

First, let’s take a breath and look at the numbers—because, contrary to the sensational headlines, they don’t lie. According to the CIA World Factbook, Gaza’s infant mortality rate is 2.27%. For a population of roughly 2.1 million, with an annual birth rate yielding around 57,400 infants, you would naturally expect about 1,303 infant deaths per year due to a range of unfortunate but non-conflict-related causes. These aren’t deaths caused by airstrikes or military actions; these are the sad realities of life in a region with limited resources and healthcare. For the 329 days covered by the report, that number adjusts to approximately 1,174 expected deaths.

Now, the document claims 1,500 infant deaths during this period—326 more than the baseline. Here’s where the narrative gets twisted. Those who tout this figure as proof of Israel’s malevolence want you to believe that every one of these 1,500 deaths is the result of Israeli soldiers pulling the trigger on defenseless babies. But this is a lie, plain and simple.

Let’s break it down. Of the 1,500 reported infant deaths, 1,174 are tragically normal, expected deaths—infants who would have died regardless of the conflict due to conditions like premature birth, infections, and other complications. So what about the 326 excess deaths? Some of these are likely collateral damage—infants who were caught in airstrikes or other military actions. These deaths, while heartbreaking, are a far cry from the image of soldiers deliberately targeting children. The bulk of these excess deaths, however, likely fall into the category of indirect consequences: infants who died because they were born into the middle of a warzone, where conditions deteriorate rapidly, and survival becomes precarious.

To suggest that Israeli forces are systematically murdering infants is not just a distortion of the truth—it’s a grotesque fabrication, a modern blood libel. The reality is far more complex. Yes, some of these deaths are a direct result of the conflict, but they are not the result of cold-blooded murder. Most are the tragic byproducts of a war started and perpetuated by Hamas, a group that has consistently shown more interest in sacrificing its own people for propaganda than in protecting them.

This is the dark genius of Hamas’s strategy: provoke a conflict, embed military operations within civilian populations, and then scream bloody murder when the inevitable happens. And the media, either through laziness or complicity, amplifies this narrative without so much as a cursory fact-check. They fail to ask the simple questions: What percentage of these deaths are indirect? How many are collateral damage? Why is the cause of death not specified?

Let’s put this in perspective. In the United States, more than 20,000 infants die each year. It’s a heartbreaking number, but it’s understood within the context of a vast, complex system where not every tragedy is the result of malice. But in Gaza, where the number is 1,500 during an intense conflict, the media is all too eager to attribute every death to Israeli aggression without any nuance or investigation.

What we’re seeing isn’t journalism; it’s a revival of the oldest and most dangerous of lies. The blood libel isn’t just an accusation—it’s a call to hatred, an incitement to violence. It’s a slander that has led to massacres and pogroms throughout history, and it has no place in civilized discourse. But here it is again, dressed up in the language of human rights, spread by those who should know better.

The loss of innocent lives, especially children, is a profound tragedy that rightly commands our grief. But when these deaths are exploited by those who seek to revive ancient hatreds, the tragedy is compounded. We must confront not only the human cost of the conflict but also the unsettling realization that some are willing to manipulate this suffering to resurrect long-buried prejudices. The risk is not just in the loss of life, but in the potential erosion of a moral understanding that we believed had moved past these dark chapters of history.