For most rational people, the release of various hostages from Gaza have given cause for immense joy, as they have emerged, albeit traumatised and in need of care, but in relatively reasonable health.
Like Belsen survivors
That all changed last Saturday as the shocking images appeared of Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami, and Eli Sharabi looking, as one relative put it, disturbingly, like they had been in Belsen concentration camp. They tell of being starved, chained, tortured, hung upside down – while in the weeks leading up to their release, they were given more food and had to learn to walk again so they could be paraded in a sick release ceremony.
Yet detractors have long been accusing Israel of starving the Gazan people - both before and during the war – often using the image of a concentration camp. How realistic have these allegations really been? Or are they, rather, mere propaganda to turn the world against the Jewish state?
One of the many justifications given by supporters, or apologists, of Hamas’ actions as it began the conflict on October 7th 2023, is that Gaza was described by many Palestinians and humanitarian actors as the world’s largest open-air prison.1 It has more recently been described by South African lawyer, John Dugard as a “concentration camp where genocide is taking place”. He was repeating an allegation made in 2023 by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. When the United Nations’ International Court of Justice opened proceedings brought forward by South Africa against Israel, Irish lawyer, Blinne Ni Ghralaigh KC, alleged that “nobody is safe” in Gaza, due to the “horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people”.2
As reported uncritically by our BBC as long ago as 2009, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace, said, “Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more; it resembles a big concentration camp.”3 In 2023, BBC Newsday, speaking to Dr Gabor Maté, a renowned left-wing Hungarian-Canadian physician, whose grandparents were killed in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, uncritically quoted his opinion, “Israeli scholars have called Gaza the largest concentration camp in the world.”4
Allegations of starvation conditions
More recently, as I outline a few weeks ago, allegations of starvation conditions have abounded, such as reported in Wikipedia: “According to a group of UN experts, as of July 2024 Israel's ‘targeted starvation campaign’ had spread throughout the entire Gaza Strip, causing the death of children.” Yet the same article also acknowledges, “On 30 June 2024, the IPC Global Famine Review Committee said evidence indicates famine is not currently occurring in Gaza, but that high risk of famine would persist as long as the war.”5
None of these comments refer to the stranglehold waged against its own citizens by Hamas. Yet again, however, according to majority opinion, Israel is primarily to blame. Let’s never forget that the current crisis stems from October 7th, when Hamas terrorists, along with some Gazan civilians, invaded Israel’s southern border with bestial barbarity, beating, butchering, burning and raping their way through peace-loving villages. As I detailed earlier, the aid supplied via Israel is extortionately managed by Hamas, and even the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has, with some justification, been accused of assisting Hamas rather than prioritizing the citizens of Gaza. Twelve of its staff were even involved in the October 7th attack, as acknowledged by UNWRA itself.6
Photographic comparisons
As International Holocaust Memorial Day approaches, let’s make some comparisons: 
Prisoners haul earth in construction of Mauthasen concentration camp
Forced labour, Sachsenhausen (Bundesarchiv/Wikipedia)
Starvation,Ebensee Camp; up to 2,000 deaths per week (BBC)
Auschwitz Birkenau survivors, 1945 (Yad Vashem, Israel)
In contrast:
UNWRA: “A 50 per cent reduction in aid entering war-torn Gaza in February has led to sharp increases in malnutrition, hunger and starvation.”7
Gazans queuing for food
According to Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, at least 20 individuals, including youngsters, have died in Gaza on account of malnutrition and dehydration. This, sadly, may indeed be the case, as not all the food is being fairly distributed to those in need, and I certainly don't doubt that the Gazan civilians have suffered significantly throughout this war, but photographic evidence indicates that the problem of starvation is neither severe nor widespread.
Screenshots of video showing civilians unloading sacks of flour and celebrating inside an UNRWA warehouse in Jabalia following the first successful aid delivery in months on March 16th 2023.8
In these days of much easier photography and instant transmission, one wonders why, if all these allegations are true, that there is (thankfully!) nothing close to WW2 concentration camp conditions. Yet the rhetoric goes largely unchallenged in any of our UK mainstream media.
Prison walls?
What of the borders of the ‘concentration camp’? There are four principal crossing points: with Israel, ‘Erez’ in the north and ‘Kerem Shalom’ in the south; with Egypt in the south, ‘Rafah’ and ‘Salah Ad Din gate’. These are the principal routes for the importation of goods. Though rarely mentioned, since 2018, the Salah Ad-Din Gate has seen a steady growth in traffic, so that in 2022/2023, over 50% of the construction materials, 25% of the food and about 40% of non-food items entered the Strip through Salah Ad-Din Gate crossing and, in 2023, about 36% of the total imports to the Strip arrived through the Gate (Wikipedia). Taxes at the crossings are levied by Hamas and the Palestinian authority, with Israel collecting the latter’s at Erez and Kerem Shalom for a small administrative fee. Additionally, before the barbarities of October 7th, 2023, 18,500 Gazan Palestinians had visas to work in Israel, but whose right to do so was rescinded three days after the Hamas attack.9
A focus on weapons
In the current conflict, by January 2024 alone, Hamas had “launched over 13,000 rockets and mortar rounds into Israel and killed 189 Israel Defence Forces soldiers. …… Hamas gets most of its weapons from Iran. The weapons are transported though Egypt and smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels. But Hamas’ weapons also include AK-47 assault rifles from China and Russia, and rocket-propelled grenades manufactured in North Korea and Bulgaria.”10
Here’s something else that has been happening inside the ‘concentration camp’: Ali Baraka, head of Hamas National Relations Abroad, stated, “We have local factories for everything, for rockets with ranges of 250 km, for 160 km, 80km, and 10 km. We have factories for mortars and their shells. … We have factories for Kalashnikovs (rifles) and their bullets. We’re manufacturing the bullets with permission from the Russians. We’re building it in Gaza.”11 Some ‘concentration camp’! Notably, the BBC queries where Israel, not Hamas, gets it weapons!12
Treated as propaganda fodder, not people
Does Hamas care about the occupants of the ‘camp’? Here’s a quotation from a TV broadcast following the current ceasefire agreement: Khalil al-Hayya, Deputy Chairman of the Political Bureau of Hamas, describes the Palestinian confrontation as “the most noble battle and the greatest cause - the battle for Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Al-Aqsa Flood Campaign”. On Al-Jazeera TV he proclaims, “We salute our martyred leaders, whose body parts were scattered all over in this war. We will proceed on the path of the martyred leaders until we achieve victory or martyrdom, Allah willing. … This war started for the sake of Jerusalem. Our guiding compass will continue to point to Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They will continue to be the goal of our jihad and our resistance until the liberation and the establishment of the independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, Allah willing.” While his people suffer, al-Hayya has been living in luxury in Qatar, but since November is now reputed to be in Turkey.13
Late last year, the New York Post reported: “While their people languish in poverty and are treated as human shields, the leaders of Hamas live billionaire lifestyles. The terror group’s three top leaders alone are worth a staggering total of $11 billion and enjoy a life of luxury in the sanctuary of the emirate of Qatar….. Hamas runs an office in Qatar’s capital, Doha, and leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzuk and Khaled Mashal maintain a luxurious lifestyle. …. They have been seen at its diplomatic club, photographed on private jets, and travelled widely.”14
Truth matters! Meanwhile, we continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem – for Jew and for Arab – and for the confounding of the Islamists.
ENDNOTES
1. Norwegian Refugee Council: https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/ 26 April 2018
2. https://www.itv.com/news/2024-01-11/gaza-is-a-concentration-camp-where-genocide-is-taking-place-un-court-hears 11 Jan 2024
3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/01/vatican_says_gaza_resembles_a.html 09 Jan 2009
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gq28hh 01 Nov 2023
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine
6. https://www.unrwa.org/unrwa-claims-versus-facts-february-2024 Dec 2024
7. https://www.globalissues.org/news/2024/03/06/36174
8. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2024/12/03/targeted-aid-killings-how-israel-starved-population-and-sowed-chaos-northern-gaza-palestine 03 Dec 2024
9. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-sends-hundreds-of-gazan-laborers-held-since-oct-7-back-into-strip/ 03 Nov 2023
10. https://theconversation.com/where-do-israel-and-hamas-get-their-weapons-220762 23 Jan 2024
11. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/11/middleeast/hamas-weaponry-gaza-israel-palestine-unrest-intl-hnk-ml/index.html 12 Oct 2023
12. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68737412 03 Sept 2024
13. transcribed from the on-screen translation provided by MEMRI of a speech on what appears to be Al-Jazeera TV. The full speech, with translation, can be viewed on X (16 Jan 2025) Who will lead Hamas after killing of Yahya Sinwar? - BBC News 21 Oct 2024 19 Nov 2024
14. https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hamas-leaders-worth-11bn-live-luxury-lives-in-qatar/ 07 Nov 2024
images 1-3 (public domain) are from https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/forgive_01.shtml
