The result is a widening chasm between Israel’s official narrative and the evidence on the ground. Civilian death tolls, hunger, and the collapse of Gaza’s health system tell a story far removed from the rhetoric of moral warfare.
This feature examines nine of the most persistent myths shaping global perceptions of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—and what the record actually shows.
Myth 1: The war is about freeing captives still held in Gaza
Claim: The Israeli war on Gaza seeks the safe return of captives held by Hamas.
Fact Check: While Israel initially framed the war as a rescue mission, its actions quickly belied that claim. By May 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “victory over Israel’s enemies, namely Hamas,” had become the central goal, eclipsing the recovery of captives.
Testimonies from Israeli soldiers reveal that freeing hostages was never a priority.
“You’re bombing the house of someone suspected of being a kidnapper. By sheer luck, we didn’t kill dozens of hostages. There weren’t ‘no-strike zones,’ and you didn’t know where the hostages were... The focus was revenge against the kidnappers,” one soldier told +972 Magazine.
That disregard proved fatal.
Within a week of the war’s start, Hamas said 27 Israeli captives had been killed in Israeli strikes. On 10 November 2023, an air raid targeting Hamas commander Ahmed Ghandour killed three Israeli hostages nearby.
Another strike on 14 February 2024, aimed at senior Hamas leaders, killed six more captives held under Khan Younis.
Myth 2: The Israeli army is the world’s “most moral army”
Claim: Israeli forces uphold exceptional ethical standards and take every precaution to avoid civilian harm.
Fact Check: A UN report published in September 2025 found that 83 percent of those killed in Gaza by Israeli fire were civilians. It documented repeated attacks on densely populated areas and civilian infrastructure.
“On many occasions, Israeli bombardment destroyed apartment blocks, killing almost all the civilians therein,” the report stated.
It found that Palestinians in Gaza were “attacked in their homes, at hospitals, in shelters, including schools and religious sites, during evacuations and inside designated safe zones. At times, civilians, journalists, healthcare professionals, humanitarian workers and other protected persons were directly targeted and killed.”
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on 31 March 2024 that 408 aid workers had been killed since the genocidal war began.
As of 4 September 2025, at least 242 journalists had also been killed in the Strip, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
Myth 3: Israel provides sufficient aid to Gaza
Claim: Israel facilitates the safe entry of enough humanitarian aid to meet Gaza’s needs.
Fact Check: A UN assessment found that Israel “failed to enable and ensure the unhindered provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance at scale.”
Following a total siege declared on 9 October 2023, Gaza was completely cut off from food, fuel, and medical supplies. Between 7 and 20 October, no aid trucks entered the Strip, affecting two-thirds of the population that depended on assistance.
A deadly land, sea, and air blockade resumed on 2 March 2025, two weeks before Israel unilaterally ruptured a ceasefire brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US in January 2025.
The World Food Programme (WFP) reported on 14 March that it had been unable to deliver any food since then “due to the closure of all border crossing points.”
After 11 weeks of total isolation, Israel allowed limited aid entry on 19 May, just nine UN trucks. UN spokesperson Jens Laerke said the amounts were “vastly insufficient” and criticized Israeli “cherry-picking” of cargo.
UNRWA, Gaza’s largest aid provider, was barred from operations between 2 March and at least 25 July 2025. By July, 311 of its installations, nearly all of them, had been damaged or destroyed.
Israel and the US replaced UNRWA with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), described by Lazzarini as a “death trap.” The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that Israeli soldiers have killed 2,576 Palestinians, including tens of children, in or near GHF distribution sites since it started operations in May 2025.
Myth 4: Hamas uses hospitals as military bases
Claim: Hamas systematically operates military command centres and outposts from hospitals, justifying Israeli strikes on medical facilities.
Fact Check: Between 7 October 2023 and 24 September 2025, Israel carried out 825 attacks on healthcare sites, killing 985 people, including 70 patients, and injuring 2,000 more. A total of 687 medical facilities were impacted.
Israeli strikes in March and May 2025 on Nasser Medical Complex and the European Gaza Hospital killed at least 21 people and disabled Gaza’s only oncology ward.
UN investigators later found that Israeli footage used to justify the attacks misidentified civilian buildings, including the Jenin Secondary School for Boys, as Hamas targets.
Independent probes by The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and Amnesty International found no credible evidence that Hamas used Al-Shifa or Qatari hospitals as command centres.
Amnesty said Israel “repeatedly failed to produce any evidence,” and even if such use had occurred, international law still obliges it to minimize civilian harm.
The Middle East Institute notes that Israel’s expansive definition of “legitimate targets”, extending to civil institutions linked administratively to Hamas, has effectively erased the line between civilian and military sites.
Myth 5: There's no famine in Gaza
Claim: Israeli officials claim there is “no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza,” dismissing reports of mass hunger, malnutrition, and rapidly rising death rates from lack of food.
Fact Check: According to the UN's Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report dated 22 August 2025, famine (IPC Phase 5) has been confirmed in Gaza Governorate and is expected to spread to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by September’s end.
The report finds that over 500,000 people face catastrophic hunger, with another 1.07 million in emergency conditions. It projects that 132,000 children under five will suffer acute malnutrition by June 2026, including 41,000 severe cases, and that 55,500 pregnant and breastfeeding women need urgent nutrition support.
Myth 6: Israel has not committed genocide
Claim: Israel’s military operations in Gaza do not meet the legal threshold of genocide, and accusations to the contrary are delegitimizing propaganda.
Fact Check: Independent bodies and leading human rights researchers conclude otherwise.
Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip under the Genocide Convention, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a report on 16 September.
Amnesty International’s December 2024 report reached similar conclusions, citing acts “prohibited under the Genocide Convention”, including mass killings, inflicting serious bodily and mental harm, and creating life conditions intended to bring about physical destruction.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars also said the legal threshold for genocide has been met.
Myth 7: Israel warns civilians before attack and protects safe zones
Claim: The Israeli army issues effective warnings and safeguards the civilian evacuation routes.
Fact Check: The UN Commission documented numerous Israeli strikes on declared safe zones and evacuation routes.
On 20 October 2023, an Israeli strike on the Al-Aydi family home in Al-Nuseirat, inside a designated safe area, killed 28 civilians, including 12 children.
Investigators confirmed the army, in multiple incidents along evacuation routes and within designated safe areas, had precise knowledge of civilians’ presence but nonetheless shot at and killed them, including people waving makeshift white flags and children.
A BBC analysis of Israeli warning maps found “widespread errors and contradictions”, including misnamed districts, mismatched map legends, and arrows pointing to unsafe areas, all of which render warnings ineffective and fall short of the “effective warning” required by international humanitarian law.
Myth 8: All Israeli deaths on 7 October were caused by Hamas
Claim: Every Israeli fatality on 7 October was caused by Hamas fighters, and no Israeli forces were responsible for deaths among Israelis that day.
Fact Check: Independent reporting and internal inquiries show that Israeli fire also killed some Israelis during the chaos.
Haaretz reported that the Israeli army invoked the “Hannibal Directive”, permitting overwhelming fire to prevent kidnappings, even in populated areas. One defence official said, “No one knew what was going on outside,” acknowledging that indiscriminate shelling risked hitting Israelis. Commanders issued orders, including mortar and armoured fire, that senior officers later acknowledged risked hitting their own personnel.
Reuters found that hostage Efrat Katz of Kibbutz Nir Oz was “probably killed by an Israeli helicopter gunship” that misidentified her vehicle, which the military justified by stating that the crew “operated in compliance with the orders in a complex reality of war.”
In Kibbutz Be’eri, an Israeli army raid aimed at freeing hostages ended with many captives dead, by Israeli fire.
Myth 9: Gaza journalists are Hamas operatives
Claim: Palestinian journalists, including those at Al Jazeera, are covertly affiliated with Hamas and embed militant operations in news coverage.
Fact Check: In November 2023, Israeli officials accused four freelance photographers who had worked for major outlets of having foreknowledge of 7 October.
The claim, originating from the pro-Israel site Honest Reporting, was quickly discredited after its executive director, Gil Hoffman, admitted there was “no proof.”
Israel has repeatedly targeted Al Jazeera, accusing it of aiding Hamas propaganda.
In April 2024, the Knesset passed a law allowing bans on foreign broadcasters deemed harmful to “national security.”
Israel closed Al Jazeera’s East Jerusalem office the following month and raided its Ramallah bureau live on air in September.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) described these actions as “an assault on the most influential media outlet in the Arab world” and part of “a systematic elimination of journalism in Gaza and surrounding areas.”
By August 2025, RSF reported more than 210 journalists killed by Israeli forces, at least 56 were intentionally targeted while working, calling it “an ongoing massacre of Palestinian journalists.”
Israel has barred foreign press from Gaza and continued to strike local media infrastructure. RSF and over 200 international media outlets have urged Israel to grant access to independent journalists, warning that without it, “a blackout of atrocities” persists.
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