Arya News - Hamas has been accused of hoarding tonnes of baby food to heap diplomatic pressure on Israel by worsening hunger in Gaza.
Hamas has been accused of hoarding tonnes of baby food to heap diplomatic pressure on Israel by worsening hunger in Gaza .
A video has emerged purporting to show a warehouse strewn with boxes containing infant formula and nutritional drinks.
It was shared by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a US-based Gazan activist and researcher, who is a fellow at the respected Atlantic Council think tank.
He said activists had documented a number of similar finds, indicating that: “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.”
The commentator claimed Hamas’s goal had been to worsen the hunger crisis in Gaza and “initiate a disaster” that would add diplomatic pressure on Israel to end the war.
Credit: @israelhayomeng/Instagram
Mr Alkhatib did not provide any other videos, photographs or further details on what was discovered.
The extent to which there was extreme hunger in Gaza and who was responsible became a hugely contentious issue over the summer.
Israel cut off all aid to the Strip at the beginning of March.
In April, the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opened a small number of aid hubs, which were based largely outside population centres.
Hundreds of aid seekers were killed by gunfire near the hubs, with eyewitnesses blaming the IDF, which provided an outer ring of security, and Israel pointing the finger at Hamas.
Hunger levels got worse throughout June and July, when Israel bowed to international pressure and began allowing in more aid, although by this time, trucks were being routinely looted.
The UN and foreign capitals blamed the original decision to cut off aid as the main cause for hunger.
A nutrition supplement distributed to children aged one to five in Palestine - Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu
Israel said that Hamas was systematically stealing supplies.
Mr Alkhatib, who is relatively rare among the Gazan diaspora in being critical of Israeli conduct of the war but also Hamas, said the terror group hoarded the baby food in order to force the return of the UN’s aid distribution mechanism, which was cut off in March.
“When countless other Palestinian activists and I from Gaza said this back in July, August, and September, we were villainised, attacked, threatened, and made into pariahs by the ‘pro-Palestine’ industrial complex and activist mafias, even though for Gazans, the evidence was so clearly apparent before our eyes,” he wrote on X.
“What those in the West continue to fail to understand is that there is no being pro-Palestine without also having a serious vigilance against Hamas’s continued manipulation of international public opinion to hide behind the Strip’s civilian population’s suffering, something that the terrorist organisation’s own actions have led to and created.”
The Telegraph has asked Mr Alkhatib for more information to back up his claim of widespread hoarding by Hamas.
He said on social media that the video was “just a sneak peek” at what has been recently discovered.
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