Study debunks anti-Israeli narrative of Gaza genocide and forced starvation by focusing on data

While Israel has been fighting a drawn-out military campaign against Hamas for almost two years after the terror group broke through the border fence, launching a campaign of murder, rape, and pillaging on Oct. 7, 2023, it has been facing another war against the terror group that has not seen as much success: The war of public opinion. 

A new study titled "Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War (2023–2025)," published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, challenges one of the most controversial accusations against Israel – that of attempted genocide, a claim that emerged even before the start of the ground campaign in Gaza.

In the 311-page report, the authors examine the claims against Israel, dismantling the faulty basis used to support the accusations in the public sphere.

Specifically, the report looks at claims of genocide, deliberate starvation, and indiscriminate killing in Gaza from a factual basis, analyzing humanitarian and casualty data, while highlighting the use of problematic sources and biased reporting. 

The study was not conducted in an attempt to exonerate Israel, the authors said, but an attempt to provide a factual analysis through examining forensic documentation and humanitarian reporting. 

The authors note instances of negligence, IDF misconduct, and the tragedies that often accompany conflict. 

The study is divided into eight chapters, tackling different subjects, such as accusations of deliberate starvation, Hamas’ use of human shields, claims about deliberate targeting of civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry’s manipulation of data, and humanitarian reporting by the UN and related agencies, as well as those agencies’ ability to properly analyze data from arenas of conflict. 

The study concluded that “Claims of starvation prior to March 2, 2025, were based on erroneous data, circular citations (creating a media “echo chamber”), and a failure to critically review sources.” 

However, despite the faulty reporting, which the authors note even forced UNRWA “to retroactively correct its figures,” they also “strongly criticize[d] the Israeli government’s decision in March 2025 to halt aid supplies to Gaza.” 

One of the claims that Israel has made repeatedly throughout the war, which has been rejected by the UN, is that of humanitarian aid seizure by Hamas. 

One of the report's co-authors, Danny Orbach, a military historian from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital that “the idea that Hamas didn’t seize aid is absurd.” 

“In every conflict, armed groups take the bulk of humanitarian supplies. We have documents and testimonies proving Hamas did so,” Orbach noted. 

Another area that the study looked into is the reliance of international media on Hamas-affiliated sources in Gaza. 

"The average Westerner sees dozens of reports about Israeli crimes and assumes they must be true. But they all trace back to a handful of Hamas-affiliated sources," Orbach said. 

The authors additionally noted that a crucial flaw in the research attempting to argue that Israel is committing genocide “is the complete omission of any discussion about Israel’s adversary in the conflict, namely Hamas, and its tactics.” 

Specifically, they cite an abundance of evidence, including from Hamas’ own leaders and operatives, which shows that Hamas “consistently uses Gazan civilians as 'human shields' to deliberately increase casualties and, in turn, amplify international pressure on Israel.” 

They contrast this with the documented evidence of Israel taking clear steps to reduce civilian casualties during and ahead of operations. 

"The IDF is the first army in history to issue focused warnings, deliver large-scale aid into enemy territory, and sacrifice surprise to protect civilians," Orbach told Fox News. 

Regarding the significant levels of destruction of infrastructure and buildings within Gaza, estimated to be over 70%, Orbach said, “You cannot fight an enemy embedded in 500 kilometers [about 311 miles] of tunnels, dressed as civilians without massive destruction.” 

The authors also contrasted the complete lack of “credible forensic evidence” to “substantiate claims of close-range mass killings of civilians or executions of helpless noncombatants.” This is in sharp contrast to “the substantial forensic evidence documenting atrocities in the 2025 massacres of Syrian Alawites, the Battle of Mosul, the Second Gulf War, and, of course, the October 7 attacks,” they state. 

The study notes that because of Hamas’ deliberate strategy of using the Gaza population as human shields, the use of civilian buildings and infrastructure for military purposes, including protected facilities such as hospitals, mosques, and schools, and its extensive terror tunnel network, "the war in Gaza represents one of the most complex military challenges ever faced by any Western army.” 

The study also highlights the difficulties that Israel faces in the war for public opinion, as revealed in recent reports, showing that Hamas and other Palestinian factions had well-developed propaganda and psychological warfare units prior to the start of the war, and deployed vast numbers of field reporters to generate content for the propaganda campaigns. 

The network run by former Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida is an example of these spin networks, whose sole purpose is to defame Israel, without regard to the truthfulness or factuality of the content. 

While this study provides much useful data and analysis that can help counter such claims against Israel, the time needed to compile, evaluate, and analyze such information means that Israel is always arriving late to the field of conflict in the propaganda war, long after the media narratives have been formed and often believed by much of the public. 

However, the study also demonstrated a clear bias against Israel and “systemic and serious methodological flaws” in “reports produced by UN agencies, human rights organizations, major media outlets, and scholars within the broader humanitarian ecosystem.” 

Analyzing reporting on the Oct. 7 Gaza war, compared to other previous conflicts in the region, found a disturbing pattern: “assertive statements by international bodies claiming wide-scale civilian killings, absence of combatant harm, and severe humanitarian crises were often baseless.” 

Compounding the problem, when claims were later debunked by clear evidence, retraction, when issued, often “received a small fraction of the media, academic, and professional attention that had accompanied the original allegations, which often continued to circulate.” 

In conclusion, the authors warned that the recent, and false, claims of attempted genocide by Israel in this conflict risk trivializing the very concept of genocide. 

“Finally, we must express our deep concern about the trivialization of the concept of 'genocide' by those we have criticized,” the study concludes.

"Just as unchecked inflation devalues currency, the casual or exaggerated use of the term 'genocide' risks undermining its real meaning.”