The New Yorker:

After nearly two years of war, the public rhetoric has suddenly shifted. Will it lead to real changes on the ground?

By Ruth Margalit

Two weeks ago, Israel’s most-watched news broadcast, on the mainstream Channel 12, aired a series of startling images from Gaza. There were photographs of emaciated babies, and of children being trampled as they stood in food lines, holding out empty pots; there were pictures of mothers weeping because they had no way to feed their families. At the end of the segment, Ohad Hemo, the network’s correspondent for Palestinian affairs, concluded, “There is hunger in Gaza, and we have to say it loud and clear.” He was careful to note that his assessment was not influenced by foreign reporting: “I speak to Gazans daily. These are people who haven’t eaten in days.” He went on, “The responsibility lies not only with Hamas but also with Israel.”

In much of the world, this sentiment would seem incontrovertible, even obvious. In Israel, it represented a drastic change. Since the early days of the war, the Israeli media has maintained that there is no hunger crisis in Gaza. Partisans of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government argue that there is plenty of food there, and circulate images of markets laden with fruits and vegetables. (Never mind that the prices of goods there are the highest in the world.) The real problem, they say, is that the United Nations, which largely set up the aid-distribution network, isn’t doing enough—neither to distribute food nor to keep Hamas from stealing it before it can reach the needy. Hamas and international organizations, they say, are falsely promoting a “starvation campaign.”

In July, mainstream journalists and politicians abruptly abandoned that official narrative. On the same day as the Channel 12 report, the well-known journalist Ron Ben-Yishai ran an articleheadlined “There Are Hungry Children in Gaza. We Need To Admit It—And Immediately Change the Distribution of Aid.”

The same day, the military, evidently in crisis-control mode, released a video that it said had been uncovered in Gaza, of Hamas militants in an underground room, feasting lavishly on apparently looted food. This time, reporters did not take up the official line. “Even that argument is problematic,” a Channel 12 reporter ventured. “After all, Israel replaced the U.N. aid delivery precisely to prevent Hamas from looting the aid.” He was referring to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an initiative that was rolled out in May, with backing from Israel and the U.S. Though Netanyahu’s government hailed it as a “turning point in the war,” there are only four distribution centers inside Gaza and no proper tracking of aid recipients. The sites quickly grew chaotic. According to the U.N., more than eight hundred Palestinians have been fatally shot as they sought food near G.H.F. sites. (In a recent statement to The New Yorker, the G.H.F. denied that anyone was shot near its sites.)

The hunger crisis in Gaza is still far from dominating the news in Israel the way it does elsewhere. But, even for politicians and journalists who are sympathetic to Netanyahu, it has become permissible to acknowledge that it is real. Notably, this change occurred before President Donald Trump acknowledged what he called “real starvation” last week.

Go to link