The First Viral “Famine”: How Hamas & Its Enablers Weaponize Humanitarian Suffering to Protect a Terror Regime

For at least the third time since Hamas’s October 7th massacre, major news outlets, international NGOs, and a willing army of social media activists have declared that Gaza teeters on the brink of famine and mass-starvation. The headlines are breathless, the outrage selective, and the imagery—almost always of children—carefully chosen to direct global ire not at Hamas, the instigator of this war, but at Israel.

Yet none of it withstands scrutiny. This is not a famine born of Israeli tactics. It’s a campaign orchestrated by Hamas—enabled by a credulous press and institutions like the BBC and New York Times, both of which have long since abandoned journalistic skepticism when it comes to the stories Hamas wants to sell about Gaza.

Famine as Propaganda

The most damning evidence of the famine narrative’s hollowness is what’s missing: real photographic evidence of mass starvation. Not a single credible image has emerged of a Gazan visibly emaciated due to hunger alone. That’s because the images don’t exist. And in the absence of fact, propaganda fills the void.

Take the New York Times, which recently plastered its front page with a haunting image of a boy in Gaza described as appearing terribly emaciated due to starvation. What the Times failed to mention—until later, and quietly—was that the boy suffers from a severe neuromuscular disorder, completely unrelated to malnutrition. And what the Times and numerous other publications, like the BBC and The Daily Mail, left out from the edited photo? The picture of that child’s 5-year-old brother appearing very well-fed.

This wasn’t journalism. It was political theater. A deliberate choice to manipulate public sentiment by exploiting a sick child to portray a famine that doesn’t exist. And it’s telling that, nearly a year into a supposedly worsening humanitarian catastrophe, the only images that have gone viral are of children with cancer and genetic diseases—while the one group in Gaza clearly and verifiably being starved on purpose are largely ignored: the Israeli hostages.

The Real Starvation, Ignored

Multiple hostage photos and videos have shown Israeli captives looking severely emaciated—skin stretched over bones, cheeks sunken, ribs protruding. These are not stock images or disputed cases. These are living Jews, kidnapped on October 7th, clearly starved in Hamas captivity.

And yet, while the press manufactures global outrage over a misrepresented photo of a sick Gazan child, the visible, deliberate starvation of Jews elicits barely a whisper from the same media outlets and UN agencies shouting “famine” at Israel.

Western moral outrage seems to have strict conditions: it must exclude Hamas’s crimes and, preferably, include a way to blame Israel.

Aid, Abundance, and Hamas Theft

Since the war began, Israel has facilitated the entry of over 100,000 truckloads of aid—food, water, medicine—into Gaza. That includes over 14,000 trucks in March 2025 alone. There have been air drops, sea shipments, and convoys—many attacked by Hamas itself.

No other country in history has delivered this level of humanitarian aid to territory ruled by an enemy entity (let alone one still firing rockets at its civilians and still holding its civilians hostage). Not NATO in Kosovo. Not the U.S. in Iraq or Afghanistan. No one.

But aid reaching Gaza is not necessarily aid reaching Gazans. Sky News, AP, and countless eyewitness reports have confirmed that Hamas routinely seizes and hoards food, resells it at inflated prices, and violently controls distribution. When UNRWA isn’t helping Hamas, it’s looking the other way.

A Crisis That Never Materializes

This is now the third “imminent famine” predicted by the UN and NGOs since October 2023. Each time, the predictions were breathlessly reported. Each time, no famine occurred. No mass starvation. No widespread malnutrition.

What did happen was the recycling of lies: a child with a degenerative illness used to evoke hunger; claims of Israeli attacks on aid convoys that turned out to be Hamas operations using human shields. The pattern is clear. The facts collapse. But, the phony narrative survives.

Why? Because it’s not about hunger. It’s about pressuring Israel into a ceasefire—one that wouldn’t save civilians, but Hamas itself.

And yet, the World Rewards Hamas

The most perverse outcome of this propaganda campaign is its success. As Hamas holds hostages—some of whom are literally being starved—and refuses multiple ceasefire offers, the same Western governments shouting “famine” are rewarding Hamas by putting Palestinian statehood back on the table.

France, Spain, Ireland, and others are rushing to recognize a “State of Palestine” while that very state’s de facto rulers (and likely future rulers based on all polling and history) continue to imprison and torture Israeli civilians. Think about that: Hamas refuses to release captives, rejects ceasefires, and continues to fire rockets—and yet it gets diplomatic upgrades.

The famine story and genuine civilian suffering in Gaza has become a diplomatic lifeline, not for Gazans, but for Hamas.

Where the Cameras Don’t Go

Real famines exist. In Sudan, over 500,000 people have died of starvation since Hamas first invaded Israel on October 7th. In Yemen, the Houthis’ war has literally killed nearly 100,000 children from starvation. In Nigeria, Congo, and Somalia, food insecurity is catastrophic.

But these crises aren’t viral. There’s no Israeli to blame. And so, the world barely pays attention.

It turns out “famine” only matters when it can be [wrongfully] blamed on Jews.

The Real Moral Test

The suffering in Gaza is real. But its cause is not Israel. It is Hamas: a fascist Islamist regime that started a war it knew it couldn’t win militarily, based on the hope that Hezbollah and Iran would fully attack Israel on October 8th, and rooted in a genocidal and virulently antisemitic ideology that values martyrdom more than life.

Hamas could end this war tomorrow. Release the hostages. Accept a ceasefire. It has refused—because this war isn’t about Palestinian Arab statehood, safety or lives. It’s about destroying Israel.

And if Western media, NGOs, and governments continue to carry water for Hamas—by manufacturing outrage over a famine that doesn’t exist, while ignoring the deliberate starvation of Jews—the cycle of war and suffering will not end.

If You Want to Save Gaza, Free It

The moral pressure must not fall on Israel. It must fall on those who started this war, hoard food from their own people, and refuse peace at every opportunity: Hamas.

Saving Gaza starts with removing Hamas from power. Anything else is not just dishonest. It’s complicity.

Micha Danzig served in the Israeli Army and is a former police officer with the NYPD. He is currently an attorney and is very active with numerous Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, including Stand With Us and the FIDF, and is a national board member of Herut North America.