Famine or Facade?

Is Hamas Starving Hostages While Hiding Behind Humanitarian Outrage?

While international agencies warn of “famine-like conditions” in Gaza, a disturbing contradiction has emerged. As reports of malnutrition and starvation fill headlines in regards to Gaza, I am reminded of the social media posts that flooded my feed of public celebrations among Gazan civilians on October 8th and beyond, as bloody hostages and corpses were paraded around the Gaza strip, passing out free candy to cheering civilians. The contrast is hard to ignore: If Gaza has been starving for months…starved, we’re told, by Israel, how was there enough candy to celebrate the October 7 attacks? Now, with around 50 hostages remaining in captivity, we’re told there’s no food. Famine doesn’t start with a sugar surplus, my friends. This feels like a strange foreshadowed setup for a ‘malnourished’ or totally deceased hostage return with Israel, once again, conveniently blamed.

As firsthand testimonies trickled in from released hostages, it became disgustingly clear just how brutal their captivity in Gaza had been. Many returned nearly unrecognizable, severely emaciated and physically broken. Among them was Iair Horn, held for nearly 500 days after his abduction from Kibbutz Nir Oz. He returned this past February alongside Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami, each visibly starved, frail, and bearing the unmistakable signs of prolonged deprivation. Some hostages described being fed a single pita per day, some being forced to serve as personal chefs to Hamas leaders, and some often receiving nothing at all.

These individual stories are set against a backdrop of dire humanitarian data, including the IPC reports Gaza has reached famine thresholds across most of its territory, citing rising hunger-related deaths, including more than 147 such fatalities this war, over 60 of them children, in July 2025 alone, and UN agencies and WHO warning of a catastrophic trajectory, with aid airdrops and land crossings still failing to meet basic needs.

“But it’s not just about the hostages…” True. Let’s look at Gaza – a population who, despite their candy celebrations and personal Israeli enslaved “chefs,” receives aid from the country that they (both civilians AND their governing terrorist organization, Hamas) routinely attack. Throughout history, no nation engaged in active conflict, (particularly one it did not initiate), has been expected to supply humanitarian aid to its enemy. Yet Israel has facilitated the delivery of nearly two million tons of aid. This is not standard wartime conduct; it is entirely without precedent.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is real, but severely oversimplified and highly politicized for a narrative pushed by social justice warriors. A 2023 peer-reviewed study published in Frontiers in Nutrition found that more than 43% of Gazan adults are either overweight or obese. More specifically, 23.6% of adults in Gaza are overweight, while 19.5% are obese. Among women in Gaza, especially in urban and ‘refugee’ camp areas, the combined obesity rate rises to over 60%.  These numbers are not meant to deny genuine hunger in the Gaza strip. They are not to diminish hunger among children who are products of their unfortunate circumstancial environments. The numbers here reveal that food scarcity and distribution in Gaza has been highly uneven, even pre-war, and that Gaza’s misuse of aid has been causing more than half of their population to be on the brink of starvation all along.

Those who view a 2023 study as ‘outdated,’ need to reconsider the implications of pre vs. post war data. Clearly, some have access to high-calorie, low-nutrient foods; while others including hostages and those Hamas propagates to neglect, likely receive nothing. If over 43% of adults were overweight just prior to war, the suggestion that the current famine conditions are not solely due to Israeli deprivation, but rather to a mismanagement and exploitation of aid, is more than likely. This reiterates the point of this article – famine is being used as a political narrative, not just a humanitarian one, and it will likely be used in propagating the return of the remaining hostages.

It is safe to assume that Hamas, in its relentless pursuit of global sympathy, continues to exploit both civilians and Israeli hostages as human shields. Aid intended for the people of Gaza is routinely seized by Hamas, used for its own purposes, and then followed by claims that there is not enough left to distribute to Gaza’s children. As their track record makes clear, the civilians of Gaza are once again being weaponized. This time, not only as military targets, but as famine subjects.

As the international community grows increasingly desperate for a resolution to end the war, save the people of Gaza, and perhaps, for some, to free the Israeli hostages, we, the skeptics of the world, must remain vigilant against the narrative being carefully constructed. It is not far-fetched to predict that in the coming weeks, emaciated or even deceased Israeli hostages may be returned to their families. Their condition will likely be portrayed not as the result of Hamas’s cruelty and neglect, but as a consequence of Israel’s refusal to send sustainable aid, agree to a ceasefire, and succumb to ‘free Palestine’. The world will be told that Israel starved not only the children of Gaza but its own citizens as well, just as Israeli airstrikes were blamed for the suspicious strangulation of the Bibas children. This is not just a tragedy. It is a calculated strategy. And if we fail to expose it now and raise suspicion, we risk allowing propaganda to turn abusers into victims and terrorists into heroes. As the world mourns the suffering of Gaza’s children, we must not forget the 30 Israeli children who were ripped from their homes and taken hostage as a part of the hundreds abducted or murdered in the attacks that ignited this devastating war. This famine did not begin in a vacuum. It was set in motion by brutality, not blockade. I often hear people say, ‘If Hamas gave back the hostages, the war would be over,’ but that’s yet another oversimplified take meant to soothe the uncomfortable truth that Hamas will still attack again. And while cries of starvation echo across the world, the blood of both Israelis AND Palestinians stains the hands of the terrorists who started it all, yet turn a deaf ear to the suffering they’ve unleashed.