Posted on 08/08/2025 6:07:13 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Footage released by the IDF on July 23, 2025 shows Hamas operatives gleefully displaying provisions in an underground tunnel X/@IDF
Israel is not starving Gaza. Any claim to the contrary is mendacious propaganda. That said, Israel did create the situation that gave rise to the current avoidable crisis, which it has badly mishandled, to boot. It is not too late, however, to course-correct and resume focus on the mission of defeating Hamas.
Here are the facts: Enough food enters Gaza. Pockets with shortage are the result of two things: the United Nations not relinquishing control to the American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and Hamas’ war strategy of increasing its own population’s suffering to put international pressure on Israel—confident in the press’ willful cooperation.
Israel’s original plan at the end of the long second cease-fire in March would have denied Hamas the ability to execute this strategy. The plan was to break Hamas’ control over Gaza’s population by breaking its control of the aid entering the strip. The IDF was to divide Gaza into discrete areas, isolating each one while providing it with a humanitarian corridor to enable civilians to leave combat zones and move south to temporary accommodation in safe sanctuaries, which is what the IDF had already done before the second cease-fire (during which many evacuated Gazans returned). Meanwhile, the American GHF was to distribute food in these sanctuaries. It would do so in family packages, rather than through wholesale supply, which invites middlemen. More than 100 million such meals were distributed by GHF in the past two months.
After the evacuations, any remaining person in the combat zones would be considered a combatant. A siege would be applied until all combatants surrendered and gave up the hostages they held. It’s important to note that a siege is a legal means of war sanctioned by international law and authorized by the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual (2015), even when applied to a civilian population in certain cases. However, the IDF plan was to implement it only after civilians were safely evacuated.
But Israel did not execute this plan. Instead, it concentrated on the effort to reach a hostage deal while attempting to prove its morality to the world. Subjecting itself to standards far stricter than international law requires, the IDF opted for half measures and did not move the population to designated safe zones to supply them with food. Instead, fearing a humanitarian crisis, the IDF began sending aid to pockets where Hamas has been using the population and the hostages as human shields to create safe havens for itself. In so doing, Israel became the first country in the history of warfare to assume responsibility for feeding the enemy population. It thus relieved Hamas of responsibility instead of insisting that the group surrender and release the hostages. So far from scoring points for morality, Israel dug itself into a hole, and still it was blamed for the crisis that Hamas and the United Nations have manufactured.
According to the United Nations’ data, almost 90 percent of aid trucks sent to Hamas-controlled areas are looted. Consequently, Hamas gets to control distribution and to sell food and other necessities at exorbitant prices. This allows it to continue feeding its men and their families and paying their salaries, which in turn perpetuates Hamas’ administrative grip on the population. For example, baby food enters the strip as free aid. It is then sold by private merchants for $70 per small package and $125 for larger ones. Hamas then takes its cut by collecting an exorbitant tax.
At the same time, huge quantities of food are rotting in the sun in U.N. storage lots, because the United Nations would not relinquish its control over supplies to GHF. It has strong incentives to continue doing so: Many of the United Nations’ employees in Gaza are also Hamas members or are married to Hamas members. Moreover, if aid distribution is shifted away, the United Nations stands to lose funding, as major donors, including the United States, withhold funds or redirect them to alternative mechanisms.
If Israel is to recover momentum and achieve its war aims—dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, returning the hostages, and ensuring Gaza does not pose a danger to Israel in the future—it must first gain control over the aid supply and ensure it flows only through GHF. This can be achieved, at a minimum, by expanding the GHF distribution mechanism to the full width of the strip, from Rafah up to the Netzarim Corridor, bringing aid directly to populations now receiving it from—or being deprived of it by—the United Nations and Hamas.
But this is only a stopgap measure. In the long run, without evacuating the civilian population from combat zones and applying effective sieges to places where combatants are still able to hide, Israel will not fully achieve any of its aims. Implementing the original plan will surely result in opprobrium from a hypocritical international community, but at least it will succeed and end the war. In fact, the attempt to avoid criticism through half measures manages to achieve the worst of both worlds: It brings only an even worse cascade of international condemnation while prolonging the war. That could then lead to more needless suffering, potentially turning international pressure into a strategic danger. All this without accomplishing what Israel must accomplish if it is to survive: the utter and total destruction of the organization that perpetrated the horrors of Oct. 7 on the Jewish people.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Winner is the former head of operational planning in the IDF’s Southern Command.
When will people complain about the UN providing cover for HAMAS?
The ‘Palestinians’ are a burden on everyone else in that part of the world.
The Left and the MSM are clearly on the side of Hamas. They spread their false propaganda and don’t even care about what happened Oct. 7.
When will people complain about the UN providing cover for HAMAS?
I have noticed, especially when it became apparent that the UN had assisted HAMAS in Jan 6th attack, that there was little world outrage. The United Nations has shown itself incapable, corruptible, and generally malevolent in regards to many issues, but Jan 6th attack should have been the last stand for the UN, IMHO.
I think that the Israeli’s are making a giant mistake by not giving the Palestinians the land and their own state....with a single pre-existing condition. That single pre-existing condition is that if Israel is attacked from those lands, it has the right to declare war (and whatever it takes to eliminate the treat of further attacks) and keep the land forever as a prize. To the victor will go the spoils, and that has been history for a very long time. I am certain that the Palestinians are incapable of living next to anyone in peace for anytime, and so Israel will have the right to forever hold that land.
The next step is to unilaterally annex Judea and Samaria.
By abandoning its original plan and bending to international pressure, Israel handed Hamas control of aid, of the narrative, and of the war“
How many times does this lesson have to be learned?
.
These demons live right next to the sea and rather than fish for their food they are more interested in killing and waging war against fellow human beings. The only way to make sense of this wickedness is to accept the reality that these killers are Satan’s acolytes who he reigns over and directs to wage constant war to try and destroy Almighty God’s creation. Furthermore, the only conclusion I can draw as to why God has thrust what is clearly an endless scourge upon us is to test our inner soul and faithfulness to His purpose.
How many times does this lesson have to be learned?
Man is naturally bad. When you understand that, wisdom follows. Morality has to be learned and enforced.
The MSM, with their biased reporting, are prolonging the war, killing more people when peace could have been secured long ago if there was honest reporting of the war. People are fast to forget Hamas beheading women and children while they slept in their beds, mainly because the MSM never showed what Hamas really did during the attack. Thousands of lives are on the shoulders of the MSM.
The MSM seems to get its news exclusively from Hamas, which is all lies. I’m certain the AP, Reuters, CNN, MSNBC, etc., have embedded sources in Hamas itself, whose identities they won’t reveal. We know that there are members of the U.N. in Hamas. The world lives in darkness and loves evil, which is why they can get away with it.
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