Vatican newspaper criticizes Israeli claim of no famine in Gaza

July 28, 2025

In the most prominent front-page article in its July 26 edition, the Vatican newspaper criticized an Israeli defense ministry statement that “there is no famine in the Gaza Strip.”

In “A Gaza nessuna carestia?“ [In Gaza no famine?], Gaetano Vallini began, “On the one hand, Israel, whose authorities maintain that there is no famine in Gaza; on the other, the images of malnourished children, skeletal bodies, huge eyes on faces hollowed by hunger. Heartbreaking photos that have been circulating for weeks now, but which have multiplied in recent days, because the hunger that for some doesn’t exist strikes more and more every day. And it kills, especially the most defenseless, the youngest.”

“The Israel Defense Forces’ statement contains a fundamental contradiction,” continued Vallini, L’Osservatore Romano’s second-ranking staff member. “The IDF has announced that it will allow foreign countries to airdrop food into Gaza, but, despite the denunciations of the UN and over a hundred NGOs, it insists that there is no famine in the Strip. Only a ‘difficult and challenging’ situation ... Malnutrition and starvation deaths are simply Hamas propaganda.”

Vallini added:

The United Kingdom, France, and Germany disagree, given that just yesterday, at the end of a call, leaders Starmer, Macron, and Merz acknowledged that “a humanitarian catastrophe” is unfolding in the Gaza Strip that “must end immediately,” reiterating the appeal of 28 countries. Perhaps they too have seen those photos that others refuse to see or pretend not to.

 

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Further information:

• A Gaza nessuna carestia? (L'Osservatore Romano)
• COGAT asserts ‘no famine’ in Gaza, but acknowledges ‘pockets’ of Strip with food access issues (The Times of Israel)