First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with the expanded Gaza Explainer in #133 and #120.
Top Ten IsRafOK Entries: #85; #123; #128; #140; #144; #154; #161; #162; #164; #171
Tags: 8 Min Read; Raf Analysis; Relief!
Update: Section #2 and section #4 of the Gaza Food Explainer below was updated 2025/05/03 after email release.
I cannot believe it is May, 2025 and I am still writing this. Entry #176? What the fuck? "How does Raf keep it up?" The answer is that I hate it. Truly. Who wants to spend 18 months writing about war? I love Vasily Grossman, but never thought to follow his footsteps. [To be clear, I haven’t. He was at the front for something like 1,000 days.] There are two things that keep me writing this:
It appears this region is in the midst of an inflection point. This is painful to watch. It is also interesting. I am, by nature, by heritage, by training, by professional history, a historian. So, though I would rather be doing other things, I am compelled to stay engaged.
The engagement and support from readers has been strong, unexpected and encouraging.
Mail
(Readers contact me directly on email or messaging and can also reply to any email sent by this blog.)
Using Food As A Weapon is UnJewish, A War Crime and Horrible. (Said about Israel)
I agree!
And, before we take a single step further, let's recall Raf's Middle East Byline:
Hamas has agency. As much agency as any other actor in this sad and sorry story. Denying Hamas agency is a dehumanizing act--let no one do it. If Hamas wanted, it could hand over its weapons, release the hostages and retreat to a Greek island to take up shoemaking. The war would be over and Gaza could start moving forward.
Hamas could have done this in January of 2024 or today or any day in between.
Hamas doesn't surrender because... because why, exactly?
Back to the "linear" story:
There is a problem under the “food is being criminally abused by Israel as a weapon” topic: Gaza is a complicated place in terms of food, supply chains and the "culture of dependency." Mainstream media, TikTok and Social Media feeds about "The Occupation" promote a specific message: "Israel is inhuman because it blocks the import of food to Gaza and Gazans are starving/there is about to be a famine."
As of today, May 1, 2025, this message is being broadcast loudly. As of today, a small sample of what is on social media:
Abd al-Nasser al-Ajrami, head of the Association of Bakery Owners in the Gaza Strip:
95% of the flour in the Gaza Strip has been sold out. What remains is in residents' homes and will last for a few days, and then we will reach a stage of unprecedented famine in the region.
Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA spokesman:
The Gaza Strip is facing crucial days, after food stores have almost emptied, and the health and humanitarian situation is in sharp decline. The triangle of "death - hunger - disease" threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents of the Gaza Strip.
The mainstream western media is largely ignoring this message stream, at least for the time being. I think a major reason why is that in 2024 there were two or three cycles of "media panic" over starvation in the Strip yet famine never came about. Food insecurity? Yes. Lines at soup kitchens? Yes. Starvation? No.
The 2024 panics included: Faked pictures of "starvation" (the subject had an unrelated disease) and also real pictures (if you watched Gazan social media) of food for sale and restaurants.
For example, while the UNRWA quote above sounds desperate, restaurants are running and the marketplaces are selling produce for more-or-less reasonable prices. The same day as the UNRWA announcement above, Chef Abu Saleh posted from Palmyra Restaurant, on Al-Waheda Street in Gaza City:
The below was also posted from Gaza the same day:
Price Update — Starting May 2 at "Al-Hajj Restaurant and Shawarma (Al-Sheikh)" in Northern Gaza Strip:
Zucchini – 28 NIS/kg
Yogurt – 15 NIS
Tomatoes – 25 NIS/kg
Canned meat – 75 NIS per can
Okra – 40 NIS/kg
Cooking oil (1 liter) – 70 NIS
Sugar – 75 NIS/kgNIS: New Israeli Shekels. Aka shekels. Current exchange rate: 3.62 shekels to the US dollar.
So this week you have it all: Food (as seen from the street) and food panic (as announced by UNRWA).
Part One: Famine Is Overblown
Hamas et al have used up the fear of famine. UNRWA and the UN still fall for it. The mainstream media: Off and on.
Part Two: Because Supplies are Elastic-ish
It is hard to fathom outside the Middle East the degree to which Gaza was, for years up to October 6, 2023, all these things at once:
An active local economy, including food production.
The recipient of massive amounts of U.N. aid (intended to be free to the citizenry)
The recipient of massive amounts of NGO aid (intended to be free to the citizenry)
Actively importing, on a purely commercial basis, large quantities of luxury items [including comestibles] from outside Gaza
A semi-command economy under the thumb of Hamas
Hamas taxed #1, #4 and #5 and hijacked, by force, a hefty percentage of #2 & #3. I can't tell you how much was hijacked: 25% or 75%? During the war it seems to be north of 75%. Before that, I am not sure. What we are sure of is that Hamas has, for years, maintained its own warehouses stocked with food stolen from streams #2 and #3 above. At times (such as during the war) it brings some of these stores to market and sells them, pocketing the revenue (as the cost of goods is zero).
We see telltales of #5 in the regular (every couple of months) reports out of Gaza of Gazans storming a fully stocked warehouse. They know where the food is. Once in a while, they "hijack the hijackers" [e.g. Gazans steal from Hamas warehouses] and liberate the food stores that were intended for them all along.
The taxation and hijacking are part of how Hamas developed itself into the economic upper class of Gaza, all the way down to houses and streets reminiscent of Beverly Hills (not a joke or exaggeration). Between the millions coming every month from the Qataris and the millions being collected in taxes, Hamas couldn’t spend it fast enough (neither a joke nor exaggeration). They literally could not build tunnels and arms workshops as fast as the money piled up. Hamas leaders outside Gaza had and have bank accounts in the billions. These are some of the sources.
Part Three: Wait, Who is Hijacking Hamas?
As mentioned in #133's expanded Gaza Explainer, Gaza has a number of criminal clans/gangs. While greatly subdued by Hamas, these clans have grown in power during the war and are the only AK47-toting folks in Gaza who are not Hamas. The takeovers of Hamas warehouses appear to be led by or facilitated by these groups.
The takeovers of non-Hamas food stores... is almost always by Hamas.
Part Four: Who is Behind the Gaza Warehouse Robberies of This Week?
Gazan sources report an organized robbery of eight different food warehouses in Gaza City in the April 29-May 1 frame, including:
UNRWA's a-Sana'a warehouses.
The UN World Food Program warehouses in the Shati RC.
"Al-A'alat" Bakery Warehouse.
Abu Samaan warehouse.
Da'mush Warehouse.
Nuje'a Shed on Al-Jalaa Street.
It is likely that Hamas is behind these thefts, as they are thought the only group armed and organized enough to carry out such an operation. If this is the case, Hamas is both hoarding supplies for their own control and creating--not for the first time--food shortages.
The Palestinian Authority says on May 2:
Abbas Accuses Hamas of Orchestrating Food Warehouse Looting in Gaza
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas issued an official statement May 2, 2025 addressing the growing wave of looting in the Gaza Strip, particularly targeting food warehouses.
In his remarks, Abbas directly accused Hamas of leading the gangs responsible for the thefts. He added that the identities of those involved are known and promised they would be held accountable in due course.
Part Five: And Israel?
The current Israeli approach of cutting off aid to Gaza appears to be an effort to either get Gazans to rise up against Hamas or to deprive Hamas of one of its control levers (or both). This is an aspect of the shockingly incompetent Israeli leadership: They haven’t told anyone what’s the point of the aid cutoff.
If Gazans aren’t told “Hey, this is your chance! Israel will do this, and you should do that, and here is why.” Why should Gazans budge? If the world isn’t told, “Aid has been halted because ________,” then it is understandable that folks will conclude the worst: “Israel is fundamentally evil and cruel, doing such a thing.”
The 18-month trend of Israeli leadership failing to articulate its goals and strategies to achieve them is in itself a sign of profound rot.
I can understand that aid has halted because: a) Gazan warehouses, Hamas and otherwise, are full; b) Weapons and tools of war were being smuggled in the aid trucks [blockades don’t work]; c) A hefty percentage of the food aid going in was being hijacked by Hamas and diverted to their own warehouses and used to maintain their revenue streams and political control.
I know those things, because I spent the last 18 months watching feeds coming from Gaza.
But the responsibility of Israeli leadership is to tell everyone: This is what we are doing and what we hope to achieve thereby. It is also their job to be open to proposals, from NGOs or the international community, how to achieve their goals without doing something drastic like halting food imports.
Part Six: Because:
Israeli leadership seems to have never woken up to what this war is. They seem to think it’s on the ground in Gaza.
Where the hell are they? Stuck on Yair Netanyahu’s Twitter feed?
No…. if they were stuck there, they might realize the truth:
This entire war is a war for Western media attention. Hamas (and Iran behind them) uses the Palestinian people as involuntary extras in a made-for-social-media-and-CNN agitprop special feature. If Hamas feels that Israel bashing has dropped from the headlines, it will create a crisis to get suffering Gazans back on the front page.
This is the meta-narrative of the entire war.
And the Likud can’t even take the time to tell us why they won’t let in a truckload of flour. Much less figure out—or let someone else figure out—an alternate food distribution mechanism.
Shame on them.
The entire Jewish people will bear this failure for the next century.
Dept of The Invisible
Items invisible in the Western media. (Now combined with the Postmark concept, to help consolidate topics by locale.)
Syria: The Druze Are Surrounded
The Druze, in the Druze governate of Al-Suwayda in southern Syria, are surrounded by Sunnis on all sides.
Hikmat al-Hijri, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Syria, published a proclamation April 30, following the murders of Druze in Syria in the Damascus area and in Suwayda over the past few days:
إننا لم نعد نثق بهيئة تدعي أنها حكومة .. لأن الحكومة لا تقتل شعبها بواسطة عصاباتها التكفيرية التي تنتمي إليها ، وبعد المجازر تدعي أنها عناصر منفلتة .. ولا نثق بوجود عناصرها بيننا لأنهم مجرد آلات قتل ودموية وخطف وتزييف حقائق ، بتفكير طائفي تكفيري للجميع
We no longer trust an authority that calls itself a government [e.g. al-Julani’s New Syrian Republic] - because a government does not murder its own people through extremist gangs affiliated with it, and then, after the massacres, claim they were rogue elements. We do not trust the presence of this regime’s members among us because they are nothing more than machines of killing, bloodshed, abduction, and falsification of facts, with a sectarian and extremist mindset that regards all other sects as infidels.
This last line references racial incitement social media posted by extremist Sunni groups in Syria. It is also articulated in the draft for the new Syrian constitution, which specifies that certain leadership positions in the government may only be held by Muslims. [Which is intended to mean: Muslim men.]
Above: Abu Muhammad al-Julani's regime forces are carrying out arrests among the Druze in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, just south of the capital of Damascus.
Reminiscent of the way the Alawites were arrested in the coastal cities of western Syria about two months ago. (We know what happened to the Alawites….)
Europe
Switzerland passed a law banning Hamas and related organizations. We discussed recently that Jordan, following other countries in the Middle East, banned the Muslim Brotherhood and related organizations (which includes Hamas, which is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood).
Relief Area
Alef: Gaza or Tel Aviv?
Gazan social media posts a photo from an Israeli road that looks like a scene from Gaza (people evacuating on the bed of a truck):
Painful scenes from those displaced from Tel Aviv due to fires heading to Khan Younis
(For the record, the displaced Israelis are from villages around Jerusalem.)
Bet
This is the worst Independence Day in History
No, my son, this is the worst Independence Day in History so far
Gimmel
(Far Right Minister Ben Gvir prefers destruction... such are the biases of the apocalyptically minded.)
Dalet
The Torch Ceremony (part of Yom HaZikaron/Yom HaAtzmut)
The Jewish People
[The Torch ceremony has become so tarnished by political hackery, a large chunk of the populace has tuned out. The flames in the background are the brushfires, the war, the torches… Adina and I were invited to the Israel Prize ceremony, and decided it was a “meh.”]
Hey
Pogrom on a synagogue [which occurred yesterday in Raanana when Bibistim attacked a Reform shul]
Antisemites abroad vs Bibistim in Raanana
[I do not consider what the Reform shul was doing to have anything to do with antisemitism. However it was a Reform shul, which Israelis consider a foreign import. A news article on the event.]
Vav
A hostage people ... in our land
A twist on "עם חופשי בארצנו" - A free people in our land, the line from HaTikva--The Hope--the Israeli national anthem: לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ (lyrics, translation and explanation)
Zayin
[This spoofs both the poetic nature of Persian and Iran's use of Hebrew when trolling Israelis on social media.]
Chet
The writing was on the wall:
You [Minister Goldknopf, from a Haredi party] didn't put in the budget prayers against fire!
And you left a gay man in the Knesset [causing the fires as punishment]
Tet: Yair Netanyahu's Poison Factory
Yair: The fires around Jerusalem were deliberately set by Leftists...
Batman: Shut up you son of a bitch!
Yod: Seen in Ashdod
Mom, can we go to Five Guys?
No, we already have [food from] Five Guys [in the fridge].
[What's At home]: Two Gays On The Fire
[The transliteration of "guys" from English into Hebrew has... ambiguity. It is the same for "gays" and "guys"... the phrase "טו גייז" is kind of whacked, from an English speaker's perspective. The "On The Fire" line is Hebrew vernacular for grilling meat.]
After working crews spent the night putting out fires and checking the safety of bridges and tracks, Israel Rail to Jerusalem is reportedly back on line.
Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut & To Peace,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T.)