Blue and White Party Chairman Benny Gantz strongly rejected UNRWA’s claim that Israel is starving Gaza’s civilians, calling it a distortion that masks Hamas’s responsibility.
MK Benny Gantz, Chairman of the Blue and White Party and former IDF Chief of Staff, delivered a sharp rebuttal to UNRWA’s recent accusation that Israel is deliberately starving civilians in Gaza — including children.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, posted on social media:
“The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in #Gaza. Among them are 1 million children. Lift the siege: allow UNRWA to bring in food and medicines.”
Gantz fired back with a statement grounded in decades of national security experience:
“As someone who has spent over 40 years in Israel’s security establishment — as IDF Chief of Staff and as Minister of Defense — I state clearly: Israel has never starved or targeted civilians. In fact, we go above and beyond to safeguard innocent lives, even in the most complicated combat environments like Gaza.”
He placed sole responsibility for the humanitarian crisis on Hamas:
“Let there be no ambiguity — the blame for civilian suffering lies squarely with Hamas.”
Gantz also criticized UNRWA itself, accusing the organization of being compromised and indirectly serving Hamas’s interests:
“Israel is actively working to remove Hamas’s control over humanitarian aid, whether direct or via problematic intermediaries like UNRWA.”
He urged the international community to support the American-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an initiative aimed at distributing aid without Hamas interference, and called on global actors to reject what he described as “manufactured claims of genocide.”
