Analysis Editorial

Israel’s handful of ‘aid trucks’ is pure PR. After months of starvation, it will not save these kids

Kids were starving in Gaza BEFORE Israel’s blockade. A few trucks now for Israeli and western propaganda is too little, too late – lift the whole blockade NOW

Israel has finally allowed a handful – at most a dozen, according to local reports – of food trucks to enter Gaza. This is a naked and nakedly cynical PR move to try to counter the world’s disgust at 80 days of its total blockade of food, medicine, fuel and clean water on a civilian population of 2 million people still facing daily displacement and heavy bombing even in so-called ‘safe zones’.

Under Israeli occupation for years – with Israel controlling its borders even after its supposed ‘withdrawal’ in 2005 – Gaza needed 750-800 trucks of food per day just to maintain basic nutrition. That number has not been allowed to enter once since October 2023, even during the so-called ‘ceasefires’ that Israel breached daily, often targeting aid workers alongside medical staff, rescue workers and journalists, and their families.

More than 300,000 children in Gaza are facing imminent death from starvation, with their parents either dead, sick or in starvation themselves. A few trucks of baby formula, while tens of thousands of tonnes of food remain blocked at the border, is not going to undo this:

Images from various Gaza sources via WearThePeace.

The governments of the UK, France and Canada are now trying to absolve themselves by issuing a statement condemning the deliberate starvation of Gaza as ‘intolerable’. Those same governments were not just silent through eighteen months of deliberate starvation and bombing by the openly-genocidal occupation, but either provided political cover for Israel’s crimes or, in the case of the UK, actively assisted Israel – including militarily, even after Israel deliberately murdered UK aid workers.

PR in this situation is no less a crime than Israel’s other, endless atrocities. The blockade must be lifted now, completely and permanently – and Israel must face sanction and if necessary international military force until it does so.

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24 comments

      1. Julia – My impression is that it would be very unusual for the PM {any PM} to be sat on the front bench when one of his Secretaries of State was making a statement to The House.
        Keir Starmer made his position clear in his joint statement with the French and Canadian leaders and the statement that David Lammy made on the government’s behalf.

  1. I fear Israel doesn’t care for statements. The only thing that would deter Israel is if the EU decided to implement BDS towards all of Israel. More importantly to send UN troops immediately to protect Gaza from an Israeli invasion.
    UN troops can advance into Gaza through the Egyptian border and willing to advance towards the north until all Israel’s troops have leave Gaza.
    UN troops, rightly, intervened in Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990 and I don’t see why they should not intervene in Gaza right now.
    Statements are just posturing and pretending to care while Israel engages in Genocide.

    1. My thoughts precisely. Let us be blunt, the only reason Labour is reacting now is because of their election and polling results. If they hadn’t been decimated by Runcorn, Mayoral and local elections, Starmer would still be on repeat “I believe Israel DOES have that right.”

      1. winteringham – Are you referring to the LBC interview where Kier corrected and qualified what he had said in the next sentence.

      2. While Starmer is engaging in giving join statements against Israel actions, behind close doors he is busy helping Israel with intelligent and sending Israel arms to carry on with a wholesale genocide in Palestine.
        Starmer was offering to send British troops to Ukraine, never mind Ukraine doesn’t have the historic relation to the UK Israel/Palestine has. Has Starmer offered to send British troops to defend Palestinian lives in Gaza and the West Bank?
        I believe Starmer is just equivocating, the Genocide going on in Gaza and the West Bank is not going to stop him from trading with Israel or recognise Palestine as a State. Starmer says one thing while doing another.

      3. Meanwhile, War on Want reminds us that you should always read the small print when it comes to the statements of Western politicians:

        “Hi David,

        The UK government has just announced it is suspending talks with Israel on a new trade agreement and earlier threatened “further concrete action” if Israel doesn’t end its aid blockade on Gaza – but halting talks on future trade is not enough.

        The UN has warned that 14,000 Palestinian babies in the Gaza Strip could die in the next 48 hours because of Israel’s blockade.

        UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy today called Israel’s actions ‘intolerable’, ‘morally unjustifiable’ and ‘egregious’, but did not commit to ending the UK’s current trade deal with Israel or ending UK-Israel arms transfers.

        The UK is still arming Israel and is still complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. David, call for a full UK-Israel arms embargo:

        We must keep up the pressure on the UK government to take seriously its international obligations and to act now. While suspending trade talks with Israel is a step in the right direction – it comes after Israel has killed at least 61,000 Palestinians.

        The UK government should have stopped arming Israel many months ago. Palestinians demand action now – not empty words.

        The UK government must stop enabling Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.”

        ———————————————–

        To sum up the position of the Starmer Regime:

        ‘We deplore what you are doing with the arms, equipment and spare parts we are supplying to you, along with the intelligence and other data we give you to carry out what we claim to deplore.

        However, despite our words deploring what you are doing, we intend to continue providing you with the means to carry out what we claim to deplore.

        This would not be happening without the active and enthusiastic support of bought and paid for Western politicians and media whores.

        On which note:

    2. “Statements are just posturing and pretending to care”

      As are, and let’s be brutally honest here, attempted virtue signalling by commending those statements as though they actually mean anything in terms of alleviating and improving a situation which those spouting this political rhetoric continue to actively and enthusiastically aid and abet.

      Such statements are at the very least nineteen months too late. They represent meaningless drivel because as far as those making these statements are concerned nothing happened prior to October 7th 2023; no one has the right to armed struggle against a rabidly apartheid state which has been stealing, raping, pillaging and slaughtering for over seventy years; only one side has “hostages” to be freed; and the Hannibal Directive has never existed or been used.

      The scores of openly racist and genocidal statements emanating from politicians, religious leaders, media outlets, the hundreds of thousands in the armed settler movement, and people on the streets throughout this colonial settler Zionist state with a superiority complex on a daily basis are ignored in a single sided statement which clearly refuses point-blank to recognise the root causes of a conflict to which those making the statement are active participants.

      Only the immediate deployment of troops on the ground to kick the IDF out of Gaza and the illegal (under UN mandates which never get implemented due to the Western powers) settlers from the West Bank will prevent further murder by an out of control Rogue State which has set itself and its entire society against any solution other than a Greater Judea from the Euphrates to the Red Sea which takes in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Northern Iraq and Egypt.

      All we get here is a vague reference to some possible future “concrete steps” which are not defined and which those the statement is seemingly directed know will never be applied. Followed by the usual hypocritical cant about a two-state solution which even thick as a brick Starmer and Lammy know the majority of Israeli society would rather nuke the planet than accept.

      Only the forceful ending of an apartheid state system where everyone has equal rights – not just those who consider themselves “chosen” – and a return of stolen lands by de-Zionising West Asia (The Middle East) and the Collective West will resolve this conflict.

      1. Dave for some reason it doesn’t allow me to tick like your comments. Just to let you know that I am in total agreement with you.

      2. Maria – Ref your ✔️ problem.
        Try checking your browser settings, if you are blocking popups (a very sensible precaution) you will need to allow them for https://skwawkbox.org/
        Hope this helps

      3. I’ve often noticed threads of some length with no “like”s at all. On this thread, it seems that Winteringham’s comment at 4.21pm was the last to get a “like”. At this point there were 3 only comments.

        It seems that someone switched off this facility soon afterwards, as it stretches credibility that none of the subsequent comments (19 out of 22 in total) attracted any “like”s at all.

        Another example of (ahem) “”outside interference” from the vermin and their supporters…

  2. They should be boycotted from national governments to school tuck shops.

    And if that would be enough to make the rodents relent, then boycott the snides just for the sake of it.

    And even that’d be a whole lot less than they deserve.

  3. What is it they’ve got that people want?

    Their spying apps aren’t any good for the ordinary joe.

    Ditto their hi-tech weaponry.

    Which leaves dates….From land they stole, and continue to steal.

    So they can bastard well cram their stolen dates….Oh, and their persistent victim status, which even kopites are sick of hearing.

      1. No they haven’t.

        That’s another thing what they’re trying to rob off their neighbours

      2. Toffee – You may well have a point there but the fact remains that for the foreseeable future Israel are the ones benefiting from it’s sale to surrounding states.
        I wonder, would Palestine be a financially viable state if it had access to its rightfully owned oil and gas revenues (along with some honest and competent leaders)?

      3. “That’s another thing what they’re trying to rob off their neighbours.”……

        …..on behalf of, and as proxies for, their parasitic oligarch sponsors in the CoL and Wall Street.

      4. Israel exports natural gas primarily to Egypt and Jordan
        Agreements have been signed for the export of 133 BCM of Israeli gas, including
        60 BCM from Leviathan to Egypt,
        25 BCM from Tamar to Egypt,
        45 BCM from Leviathan to Jordan,
        3 BCM from Tamar to Jordanian industrial facilities

        Israel exported $394 million worth crude oil in 2023, with the main destinations being Chinese Taipei, the Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, and Italy. Surprisingly the Netherlands was the fastest-growing market for Israeli crude petroleum exports between 2022 and 23

  4. SteveH20/05/2025 at 5:18 pm
    winteringham – Are you referring to the LBC interview where Kier corrected and qualified what he had said in the next sentence.

    After Ferrari clarified the conditions israel have imposed…

    Nothing was ‘corrected’ by keef, only ‘qualified’, as you have mislabelled it.

    Everyone else will call it: ‘a doubling down‘.

    And even now, long after the interview, keef denies he said what he said; that his words were takeout of context – even though Ferrari made clear what israel was_is doing, to help keef come to his decision.

    “A siege is appropriate? Cutting off water; cutting off power?”

    I think israel DOES HAVE THAT RIGHT”

    Make NO mistake, that’s what was said. That’s what was meant. That’s been keefs policy ever since.

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