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On September 10, 2025, UN Watch Executive Director joined Chris Kenny on Sky News Australia to discuss the problems with the recent U.N.-backed report declaring a “famine” in Gaza.
Chris Kenny, Sky News Australia:
Last month, the world heard from the international body that works with aid agencies and the United Nations to monitor food security worldwide. It’s called the IPC, or Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, and last month, it issued a report that declared the Famine Review Committee had determined that famine is currently occurring in Gaza. Critics say the body actually changed its standards and criteria in order to declare a human-induced famine in parts of Gaza. Let’s go to Hillel Neuer, who is the Executive Director of UN Watch. Thanks for joining us again, Hillel. Tell us, is this correct? Is the IPC Correct? Is there a famine in Gaza or not?
Hillel Neuer:
No, this is a fabricated report. Let’s be clear, there is suffering in Gaza. There are problems with humanitarian needs, but there is not famine. There are objective measures and standards that are used normally to determine if there’s famine, and in this report, it was motivated, politically motivated, to fabricate a finding of famine. You know, to give one important measure — according to the IPC, this U.N.-backed body which made this finding of famine, according to their measure of a Phase Five famine, you would have two people per 10,000 in the population dying every day. That means that in the past months, we would have 22,000 deaths in Gaza from famine. Yet, according to Hamas and the U.N. themselves, the number is 30. I’ll say that again, not 22,000, which would be the result according to their declared measure, but 30. So the moment that you don’t have these thousands of people dying, by their measure, you don’t have famine. That’s just one of many examples of how this report is a complete fraud.
Chris Kenny:
There’s also supposed to be 20% of households running out of food for it to be a famine, and Gaza doesn’t meet that standard either.
Hillel Neuer:
That’s right. Look, this report was not made in good faith, to put it mildly. They did not consult Israel, which is a major element in bringing in aid, and which has some data on the ground. Israel, through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the United States and Israel, has facilitated tens of millions of meals in the past couple of months alone to people in Gaza. None of this was taken into consideration. They also, you know, the UN measures only trucks that they bring in, not trucks that other people bring in. This report was not made in good faith. It was based on cherry-picked data. They used partial data from July, declaring that they saw a rising trend. They ignored contrary data. They inflated mortality figures using data that came from the terrorists. These are basically terrorist claims. These are Hamas claims laundered by a U.N.-backed report, and if we know a little bit about who the authors are, that tells us a bit more about how this happened.
Chris Kenny:
Now I just want to reiterate the point that you made at the outset, and that is that you’re not downplaying the trauma in Gaza and the suffering of the people there. It is real. It does need to end. But what is the motivation here? By trying to suggest that most of the trauma is created by a lack of aid that is a human-induced famine, they’re trying to suggest that all the problems in Gaza are the result of Israeli actions, rather than stemming from a war that Hamas deliberately continues to prosecute.
Hillel Neuer:
That’s right. Look, let’s recall: there was a ceasefire on October 6th. On October 7th, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, slaughtered 1,200 people, committed horrific atrocities, and took some 250 hostages, 50 of whom have never returned. We hope 20 are still alive, maybe more, and they are being tortured. All of this can end. All of this can end now if Hamas releases the hostages, lays down their arms. The war is going on because Hamas continues to attack Israel. Just two days ago, they slaughtered innocent people. Six people were slaughtered at a bus stop in Jerusalem, including a rabbi, and they seriously wounded some twelve others. This was something that Hamas took credit for. So the war could end. Israel is not trying to harm the population. They’re trying to root out Hamas, which is not only attacking Israel, it also subjugates, oppresses, and destroys the future of the Palestinian people themselves.
Chris Kenny:
So what is the impact then, of reports like this famine one, as you say, a doctored report, effectively, it plays into the international media. Does it actually help to extend the conflict by forcing all the pressure onto Israel and none onto Hamas?
Hillel Neuer:
Well look, it echoes Hamas propaganda, part of which is indeed to justify all of Hamas’s actions, and it’s part of a larger narrative that portrays Israel as evil. Israel is accused of being, in its essence, an apartheid, when it responds to tens of thousands of terrorists on their border. When France killed dozens of jihadi terrorists in Africa, in Mali, thousands of miles away, who had nothing to do with France — that’s not the case with Israel. Israel has these terrorists right on their border. It’s right across the street from Israeli towns and villages, all of them within rocket fire. So Israel is obliged to root out the terrorists. These reports are designed to portray Israel as evil. And let’s be clear, the reason that we’ve seen a tidal wave of antisemitism, anti-Jewish hatred — whether it’s from Sydney and Melbourne or in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, New York, London, Paris, around the world — anti-Jewish attacks, synagogues being firebombed, is a direct result of this hatred that is being whipped up by these false reports whose purpose is to demonize Israel and, by implication, those who support it, including Jews worldwide.
Chris Kenny:
Hillel Neuer, thanks so much for joining us.
