Hamas hid tons of baby formula and nutritional shakes meant for kids inside a warehouse to allow Gazans to starve and further its claims of widespread famine to undermine Israel, a US-based Palestinian activist claimed.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an anti-Hamas activist, accused the terror group of hoarding food meant for infants and young children to purposefully increase starvation in Gaza and damage the public perception of Israel.
Footage shared by Alkhatib on social media shows the inside of the alleged Gaza warehouse with hundreds of packages of baby formula and nutritional shakes.
“During the worst of the days of the hunger crisis in Gaza in the past six months, Hamas deliberately hid literal tons of infant formula and nutritional shakes for children by storing them in clandestine warehouses belonging to the Gaza Ministry of Health,” Alkhatib wrote on X.
“The goal, as I said then, was to worsen the hunger crisis and initiate a disaster as part of the terror group’s famine narrative in a desperate effort to stop Israel’s onslaught against Gaza and force the return of the UN’s aid distribution mechanism, and away from the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF),” he added.
Warnings of looming famine inside Gaza were raised earlier this year after a temporary cease-fire broke down in March.
Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering the Strip as a result.
In the following months, images of widespread starvation shocked the world, with the US directly getting involved and setting up the GHF to distribute food inside Gaza.
The program, however, was mired with controversy over near daily shootings and deaths around the distribution centers, with Hamas directly warning Palestinians not to go to the GHF sites.
During this time, Alkhatib accused Hamas of taking advantage of the hunger crisis and using Palestinians as collateral in their fight against Israel.
Alkhatib, who advocates for peace and a two-state solution, said Hamas needs to be held accountable for its role in the destruction and death in the Gaza Strip.
“You can have compassion for the real suffering of the Palestinian civilians of Gaza, and demand Israeli action to facilitate aid entry into the coastal enclave, while still holding Hamas accountable for its part in causing a hunger and starvation crisis in the first place,” he added.
Despite widespread reporting on the hunger in Israel, officials in the Jewish state have long denied allegations that its war was facilitating a famine. Israel had instead blamed Hamas looting for causing pockets of hunger.
There has been little evidence that Hamas was behind the widespread looting of aid trucks entering Gaza, with a UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) report over the chaotic summer finding that armed gangs were behind the thefts.
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