A few days following the ceasefire in Gaza, the official X account of the State of Israel claimed that UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini had admitted that there was no famine in Gaza, adding that Gaza has enough food for everyone for the next three months.
The post included a video showing footage of Israeli captive Evyatar David, along with the sentence: “The real hunger is among the Israeli hostages.”
Two minutes later, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared the claim, posting the same video with similar captions.
Several Israeli and Zionist trolls amplified the claim as well. The circulation of the claim was accompanied by an attack on UNRWA. The Israeli blogger, Ella Kenan, posted the claim, adding that “UNRWA's goal is not to help Palestinians move forward. It is to preserve their refugee status and fuel endless war against Israel.”
The award-winning British filmmaker, Aro Korol, also shared the claim, describing the UNRWA as an organization profiting from Palestinian suffering using “tax money from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and every gullible donor who thinks they’re paying for peace instead of propaganda.”
Both Kenan and Korol, along with the other Zionists who amplified the claim, claimed that “Israel keeps sending more than 500 food trucks into Gaza every single day.”
Israel Distorts Philippe Lazzarini’s Remarks to Deny Gaza Famine
Misbar’s team searched through Lazzarini’s recent statements on Gaza, finding that he made no remarks in which he admitted that there was no famine in Gaza.
The X post that Israel’s official accounts referred to was a post marking the ceasefire agreement reached between Hamas and Israel on October 9, 2025. In the post, Lazzarini stated that, “UNRWA has food, medicine, and other essential supplies ready to enter Gaza, sufficient to feed the entire population for the next three months.”
Lazzarini was referring to aid stored outside Gaza and ready for delivery, not food already available inside the Strip. His remarks were part of UNRWA’s ongoing appeals to prevent famine and to pressure Israel to allow aid entry.
The UNRWA X account also affirmed Lazzarini’s remarks on a post, saying that the agency has enough pre-positioned aid outside Gaza waiting for access.
Israel’s claims against Lazzarini contradict tens of his previous statements, where he stressed that Gaza suffers from a “manmade famine.”
A month before the ceasefire, Lazzarini posted on X stating that Gazans’ lives are “inferno,” adding that UNRWA has enough food to stop the famine, but it was stuck in Egypt.
In another post, Lazzarini attacked Israel for continuously denying the famine it has created in Gaza.
Lazzarini also adopted the term “worst case scenario” introduced by The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification to describe the forced starvation in Gaza.
Israel Restricts Number of Aid Trucks Entering Gaza
Israeli trolls who amplified the claim added that Israel keeps sending more than 500 food trucks into Gaza every single day, implying Israel’s alleged efforts to stop the forced starvation in Gaza.
However, this number is misleading compared with the situation on the ground.
On Monday, October 13, for example, four days following the declaration of the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel only allowed the entry of 173 aid trucks into the besieged Strip, while the deal stated that 600 trucks should enter daily to stop the food crisis.
Israel continued to avoid this issue. The entry of aid had been suspended for two consecutive days — Monday, October 13, and Tuesday, October 14 — because of captive exchanges and a Jewish holiday.
On October 15, the Israeli military body overseeing aid coordination, COGAT, informed humanitarian organizations that it would only allow 300 trucks per day — half of what was agreed upon in the ceasefire deal.
Israel’s decision to halve the daily aid quota came after it accused Hamas of delaying the return of the bodies of Israeli captives. However, COGAT did not clarify whether the restriction was directly linked to that dispute.
Israel’s Continued Denial of Famine Contradicts International Findings
Critically, Israel’s claim not only distorts Lazzarini’s remarks but also contradicts the findings of international famine monitors.
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, released in August 2025, over half of Gaza’s population faces catastrophic hunger, meeting the technical threshold for famine.
The World Health Organization and other U.N. agencies echoed the IPC findings. On August 22, WHO said that famine had been confirmed in Gaza City and warned that conditions were likely to spread to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis Governorates, while U.N. humanitarian briefings described the crisis as a “man-made disaster” and urged urgent action.
Moreover, only a few days before the spreading of the claims in question, The Lancet published a study further confirming the famine in Gaza. The study found that Israel’s repeated actions of blocking aid from entering the Strip caused a sharp rise in child malnutrition, with acute malnutrition rates nearly tripling during periods of restricted access and reaching famine-level thresholds in Gaza City by mid-August 2025.
According to the study, around 6% of children were acutely malnourished when aid was relatively available. After tighter restrictions in late 2024, the rate rose to 14% by January 2025. A six-week ceasefire temporarily reduced it back to 6% by March 2025. Following an 11-week total siege (March–May 2025) and continued restrictions, it surged again to nearly 16% by mid-August 2025.
Israel’s Disinformation Pattern Against UNRWA
The distortion of Philippe Lazzarini’s statement fits a broader pattern of Israeli disinformation aimed at discrediting UNRWA, which has faced repeated accusations of bias and terrorism support even before October 7.
In a previous interview with Mr. Ali Huwaidi, head of the committee at the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, by Misbar, Huwaidi said that Israel is deliberately seeking to eliminate U.N. Resolution 194 — the foundation that legitimizes both UNRWA’s existence and its mandate within the United Nations.
Israel’s campaign against UNRWA intensified after October 7.
Since the beginning of the war, Israel’s official accounts have circulated claims accusing hundreds of UNRWA employees of belonging to “terror organizations” or participating in the October 7 operation.
The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) found no evidence to support most of the allegations. Of the 19 cases investigated, only nine contained unverified indications of possible involvement. Nevertheless, Israel continued to weaponize these claims to undermine global trust in UNRWA.
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