This past Sunday, Israel announced it will cut off all aid deliveries to us, after Hamas refused a new ceasefire and prisoner-release proposal. Our stockpiles are fine, for the near future, which raises the dilemma: share images of emaciated children immediately, or give it a few more days for credibility’s sake?
As we all know, the specifics of the events are secondary to the propaganda that can be generated from it. Even at the height of the fighting since October 2023, food and other supplies were never seriously lacking in most of the Gaza Strip. Certainly not in Hamas/UNRWA warehouses. The fact that Hamas hoards the supplies and only provides them for a price has had no measurable impact on global perception of the “Gaza famine.” A picture of a starving baby is worth ten billion facts.
The question for the moment, then, involves weighing the reception of such renewed images right now, in the wake of Israel’s announcement, against the common-sense realization that starvation does not, in fact, kick in when supplies are cut off, but when one runs out of them. Which we won’t for months, at least.
So do we strike while the public awareness iron is hot and the cutoff of aid trucks
