Starvation in Gaza is a moral test for Zionists. We’re failing.
To deny Israel’s role in this humanitarian disaster is to defy the ideals behind the Jewish state
Israeli activists in Tel Aviv protest the ongoing war in Gaza on July 22, denouncing food shortages within the strip. Photo by Jack Guez / AFP / Getty Images
Contributing Columnist Sruli Fruchter July 25, 2025
One image of a six-year-old Yousef Matar’s emaciated body, the vertebrae of his spine protruding through discolored skin, is all anyone needs to see that starvation is killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza. And yet, among many of Israel’s supporters, talking about this clear and obvious fact is seen as an act of treason.
“That’s completely false,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on a recent podcast interview about famine in Gaza. Minutes later, when pressed by the hosts, Netanyahu shifted gears and subtly acknowledged starvation in the strip — but placed all the blame for it on Hamas.
Hillel Fuld, a prominent pro-Israel voice with 185,000 followers on X, recently posted that Israel “should include Ozempic in the aid packages it sends into Gaza so that the adults won’t be so fat and their lies about starvation can be more believable.”
This disregard for skeletal-looking children gasping in their mothers’ arms is more than cruel. It’s a religious and moral travesty.
The evidence of famine is undeniable at this point. The United Nations says most Gazan families eat only one daily meal, while nearly one-in-three Gazans go multiple days without eating. Even Amit Segal, a right-wing Israeli journalist, conceded that “Gaza may well be approaching a real hunger crisis.”
On Thursday, four major global news organizations, including the Associated Press and Reuters, said their journalists in Gaza are facing starvation. The very frontline aid workers who are supposed to help meet the humanitarian needs of others can’t, because they’re fainting from hunger on the job.
And Israel has largely refused to accept any responsibility or readjust its approach to ensure Gazans are fed. (On Friday, Israel announced it would allow Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to once more begin airdropping aid into the strip.) Yes, it’s true that Hamas loots and price-gouges food delivered into Gaza. But it’s also true that the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has patently failed to deliver the necessary aid, and that the IDF has shot and killed more than 1,000 civilians retrieving food, deterring those who are already desperate.
The rhetorical response by those supporters of Israel who refuse to face the facts follows one of two approaches: denying reality, or deflecting responsibility. They almost always presuppose Israel’s blamelessness, and suggest antisemitic blood libels or pathological anti-Zionism are the only sensible explanation for concerns over famine and malnourishment in Gaza.
Perhaps they could learn from Knesset member Benny Gantz, who in 2021 wrote about his mother Malka, a Holocaust survivor, admonishing him to always provide medicine and food to civilians during wartime.
Malka knew about Jewish morality. I think she would shudder at Israel’s actions today.
Many of our ancestors and sages would shudder with her. The famed halakhist Rabbi Yosef Karo writes that feeding the hungry is of the utmost importance and takes precedence over other forms of charity. Mishlei — the Book of Proverbs — explicitly says we ought to feed even our enemies.
In 1958, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik wondered about how a Jewish state would have behaved in medieval times. Would it have embodied the widespread cruelty of that area, or been a bastion of ethics? “Now, with the state of Israel,” he said, “the test has come.”
In past periods of Israeli history when Israel clearly failed that test, Soloveitchik was unrestrained in vocal protest. After the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre of thousands of civilians, which the IDF enabled, he demanded an independent commission to investigate the Israeli army’s culpability.
Such a moral reckoning is absent today.
Far-right ministers emboldened by Netanyahu’s own political aims have flaunted their racism and disdain for Palestinians. Heritage minister Amichay Eliyahu on Thursday lauded the Israeli government for “racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out.” He added: “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil.”
And Netanyahu’s far-right allies, for all his own insistence that Israel does not aim to create a humanitarian disaster, have always been transparent about their intentions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich suggested nearly one year ago that starving Gaza’s population might be “moral and justified.” Earlier this week, former security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urged Netanyahu to withhold all humanitarian aid from Gaza, which would make an already intolerable situation worse.
And their perspective has supporters in the U.S., too. “Release the hostages,” U.S. Congressman Randy Fine posted on X, replying to starvation reports from ABC News. “Until then, starve away.”
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the spiritual grandfather of religious Zionism, often decried nationalism as a form of immoral chauvinism destined to end with brutality. What made Jewish nationalism different, he believed, was, as Rabbi Yoel Ben-Nun once wrote, its dedication to humanity “as a paradigm of justice and righteousness and law to all peoples.”
One need only glance at the photos and videos of Gaza to see the horror unfolding there — skeletal children, famished mothers, defeated hope — and recognize how grossly Israel is failing. The greatest treason is allowing this starvation to continue, not admitting that it’s happening.
