Flour Massacre Called ‘Aid-Related Deaths’—Rather Than Part of Israel’s Engineered Famine

By Robin Andersen / FAIR

Over 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded on February 29, when Israeli snipers opened fire on people approaching a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed supplies of flour. The attack was quickly dubbed the flour massacre.

Corporate media reporting was contentious and confused, mired in accusations and conflicting details that filled the news hole, even as media downplayed the grave conditions in Gaza created by Israel’s engineered famine. With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in media’s facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.

Linguistic Gymnastics

On the day of the massacre, the New York Times (2/29/24) published this contrivance:

“As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll”

It was met with ridicule as it slid across online platforms. Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/1/24), author and research director at the Iranian American Council, called the piece of work “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”

Another Times headline (2/29/24) read, “Deaths of Gazans Hungry for Food Prompt Fresh Calls for Ceasefire.” Nima Shirazi, co-host of the podcast Citations Needed  (Twitter, 3/1/24), noted that “the New York Times just can’t bring itself to write clear headlines when Israeli war crimes are involved.” Shirazi offered this revision: “Israel Slaughters Starving People as It Continues Committing Genocide.”

Professor Jason Hickel (Twitter, 2/29/24), along with Mint Press‘s Alan MacLeod (2/29/24), flagged the use of the neologism “food aid–related deaths” when it turned up in a Guardian headline (2/29/24): “Biden Says Gaza Food Aid–Related Deaths Complicate Ceasefire Talks.” MacLeod noted, “Virtually the entire Western media pretend they don’t know who just carried out a massacre of 100+ starving civilians.”

Linguistic gymnastics—a longstanding plague pervading Western media coverage of Palestine (FAIR.org, 8/22/23)—were so popular in news headlines and reporting that Caitlin Johnstone (Consortium News, 3/1/24) compiled a list of them, adding  “chaotic incident” (CNN, 2/29/24) and “chaotic aid delivery turns deadly” (Washington Post, 2/29/24) to those already mentioned.

Sana Saeed, media critic for Al Jazeera, decoded the latter kind of construction for AJ+ (3/29/24), arguing that such passive language has been used “consistently to sanitize the violence that a powerful state is unleashing against civilian populations.”

As the genocide enters its sixth month, media analysts, investigative reporters and social media users have become adept at recognizing pro-Israeli contortions and patterns of language that justify Israel’s war on Gaza. This has become an essential aspect in exposing Israel’s genocide.

‘Anarchy Rules in Gaza’

The Economist (2/29/24), under the headline, “A New Tragedy Shows Anarchy Rules in Gaza: A Shooting and Stampede Kill 122 and Injure Hundreds,” went into the worst pro-Israel spin, with reporting that seemed to blame Palestinians for their own murders. Parroting Israeli press directives, the piece claimed Palestinians were killed by “trampling” each other in their own “stampede.”

The piece was written in literary prose: “Death descended on a coastal road in Gaza,” the reporter (not present at the scene) wrote. Then “catastrophe befell an aid convoy,” as if it merely happened upon bad luck.

Then the writer made a prediction: “As with many events in the war between Israel and Hamas, the facts are destined to remain fiercely contested.” That’s likely to come true, especially when major media outlets abdicate their responsibility for evaluating claims.

Timeline of Changing Denials 

Many other writers and journalists have documented the string of vacillating Israeli statements that help explain the contorted reporting. Al Jazeera reporter Willem Marx (Twitter, 3/1/24) traced a timeline of how the Israeli military changed its story over the course of the day.

The IDF began by claiming there had been trampling and pushing that led to injuries around the aid truck. Then, hungry Palestinians had “threatened their soldiers,” or “appeared in a threatening manner,” so the IDF shot at them. Later that day, Israeli officials claimed there were two separate incidents, one that involved trampling and the other that led to shooting. By the end of the day, they alleged only to have provided support to a humanitarian convoy, and that no shots were fired at all by the military.

When the BBC (3/1/24) verified that a video released by the Israeli military exhibited four unexplained breaks in the footage and was therefore invalid, the outlet still used the passive voice, referring in the headline to “Gazans Killed Around Aid Convoy.” One sentence of the detailed, confused article quoted Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Awadeyah: “Israelis purposefully fired at the men…. They were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour.” Earlier, however, Awadeyah was problematized when identified “as a journalist for Al Mayadeen, a Lebanon-based news station whose broadcasts are sympathetic to groups fighting Israel.”

Independent and International Media

If we compare corporate outlets to independent media, in which reporting was based on ground sources, humanitarian actors and aid workers, we find very different content.

Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul (2/29/24), who was at the scene of the massacre, said that “after opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies. It is a massacre, on top of the starvation threatening citizens in Gaza.”

EuroMed staff (2/29/24) on the scene confirmed that the Israeli military had fired on starving Palestinians. EuroMed’s findings were summarized in a videotape by Palestinian news agency Quds News Network and posted by the Palestine Information Center (3/4/24).

Mondoweiss (3/4/24) reported details of the massacre from eyewitness accounts. One survivor recounted how an Israeli checkpoint “split the crowd in two,” preventing those who had entered the checkpoint from passing back to the northern side. Then Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd. International observers visited the injured survivors at al-Shifa’ Hospital, “confirming that the majority of wounds from the hundreds of injured people were due to live ammunition.”

In Context of Famine

Reporting in the alternative press also placed the massacre within the context of the rapidly increasing famine in Gaza.

The headline for the Electronic Intifada (2/29/24) read, “Palestinians Seeking Food Aid Killed as Israel Starves Gaza.” The outlet said an “engineered famine has taken hold in Gaza, with people resorting to eating wild plants with little nutritional value and animal feed to survive.”

Middle East Eye’s reporting (2/29/24) included the dire condition Palestinians are currently facing: “Much of Gaza’s population is on the brink of famine as a result of the Israeli blockade, according to the UN and other humanitarian organizations.”

The day of the massacre, Democracy Now! (2/29/24) opened its broadcast with a clear statement and the relevant context: “Israel Kills 104 Palestinians Waiting for Food Aid as UN Expert Accuses Israel of Starving Gaza.” Its first guest, UN special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, said, “Every single person in Gaza is hungry.” He accused Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation. He emphasized that famine in the modern context is a human-made catastrophe:

At this point I’m running out of words to be able to describe the horror of what’s happening and how vile the actions have been by Israel against the Palestinian civilians.

Common Dreams (3/3/24) reported on Israel’s obstruction of aid convoys, and cited UNICEF on the deaths of children who

died of starvation and dehydration at a hospital in northern Gaza as Israeli forces continue to obstruct and attack aid convoys, fueling desperation across the territory…. People are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life.

It concluded, “These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable.”

In the days before the massacre, numerous outlets had been documenting the growing famine looming over Gaza. This is the material independent media made use of for contextualizing the massacre.

The New York Times, on the other hand, put the massacre into an entirely different context. A piece (3/2/24) headlined “Disastrous Convey Was Part of New Israeli Effort for More Aid in Gaza,” cited as confirmation “Western diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity.” It said that international aid groups “suspended operations” because of “rising lawlessness,” as well as Israel’s refusal to “greenlight aid trucks.” It blamed starving Gazans by claiming that aid convoys had been looted either by “civilians fearing starvation” or by “organized gangs.”

‘How is This Not a Bigger Story?‘

As Common Dreams and Mondoweiss reported, the flour massacre was not the first time the IDF killed starving Palestinians, and it would not be the last. As Mondoweiss (3/4/24) put it: “In less than a week, Israel has committed several massacres against the hungry. On Sunday, March 3, Israel bombed an aid convoy, killing seven people.”

Quds News Network (3/2/24) reported that Israel targeted hungry civilians again at Al Rasheed Street in northern Gaza while they were waiting for humanitarian aid. And  Quds (3/4/24) reposted Al Jazeera footage that captured the moments when Israel’s military opened fire at other hungry Gazans, this time at the Al Kuwait roundabout, as they looked for food aid.

Al Jazeera (3/6/24) continues to document the murders of Palestinians desperate for aid as they come under Israeli fire. On a longer videotape, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch says these attacks violate ICJ orders:

The idea that these people are being killed as they scavenge for meager rations of food is just appalling, and is a reminder why there must be international immediate action to prevent further mass atrocities.

Following the Al Jazeera report, Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/6/24) expressed dismay:

Israeli attacks on Palestinians waiting for or attempting to get aid have repeatedly happened this week, yet there has been no media coverage since the massacre that killed over 100 people. Israel is attacking civilians it’s deliberately starving. How is this not a bigger story?

Normalizing Starvation and Massacres

Sana Saeed (Twitter, 3/4/24) observed:

So just to be clear: Much like how Israel normalized attacking and destroying hospitals, and it was accepted by the international community, Israel is now normalizing shooting and killing the people it is starving as they seek food.

Media have failed to inform the US public on the horrific conditions experienced by starving civilians in Gaza. They blamed Palestinians for their own deaths, covering for the Israeli military as it carried out a massacre. They further dehumanized Palestinians by characterizing starving people as an unruly mob who trampled one another.

To paraphrase Patrick Lawrence (Floutist, 11/16/23) on the distortion of language in defense of Israel’s violence against Palestinians: It corrupts our public discourse, our public space, and altogether our ability to think clearly. This corruption is as vital as US bombs to the Israeli genocide against Palestine: Without these verbal distortions that justify, distract, deny and consume corporate information spaces, the genocide could not be carried out.

By Zehra Imam / Mondoweiss

As Palestinians are slaughtered by the thousands in Gaza and violently attacked during night prayers in the al-Aqsa Mosque by Israel, the West Bank endures massacres that at times go unnoticed during this holy month. I have spent my Ramadan in conversation with a friend from Jenin. 

Much has changed since I visited Aseel (not her real name) in August 2023. There are things I saw in Jenin that no longer exist. One of them is my friend’s smile and her spark.

Usually, they say Jenin is a small Gaza. During Ramadan, because the attacks generally happen at night, people are an easy target because they are on the streets late at night. In the past, it was rare for the IOF to enter during the day. Now, they attack during the day; their special forces enter, and after people discover them, their soldiers come within minutes. 

Every 2-3 days, there is a new attack in Jenin. In our minds, there is a constant ringing that the IOF may come. We don’t know at what time we will be targeted or when they will enter. There is no stability in our lives.

Even when we plan for something, we hedge it with our inshallahs and laugh. There are a lot of ifs. If they don’t enter the camp. If there are no martyrs. If there is no strike.

On the second day of Ramadan, they attacked my neighborhood again. We thought it was a bombing because it started with an explosion, but the house was shaking. We were praying fajr, and everyone was screaming outside. The sound of the drone was in our ears. “No, these are missiles,” we realized.

There was panic in the streets. Women fainted. People had been walking back from praying at the mosque, and some were still in the street. Alhamdulillah, no one was hurt, we say.

The balcony to the room at my uncle’s house where we slept had fallen. It no longer had any glass, and a bullet entered my uncle’s bedroom and reached the kitchen. The drone hit the trees in front of our house. The missiles destroyed the ceiling, and the rockets reached my neighbor’s house on the first floor, exactly in front of our house.

Since October 7, Jenin has become a target. There is a clear escalation in the camp and the city. The IOF has used many different weapons to kill us here. They have even been aggressive toward the infrastructure, as though every inch of our city was resisting them.

They destroyed much of the camp, and there is no entrance now. The arch is gone, and there is no sign reminding us that Jenin refugee camp is a temporary place. There is no horse. Only the street is left. You have the photographs. You were lucky. They changed the shape of the camp, and everything has been destroyed.”Aseel

The first time Aseel and I met in person was in Nablus at the Martyrs Roundabout. As we caught up, we ate a delicious concoction of ice cream, milk, nuts, and fresh fruit that was a perfect balm to the heat. She took me to some of her favorite places nestled within the old city of Nablus. A 150-year-old barber’s shop that felt like you had entered an antique store where plants reached the ceiling and where the barber was a massive fan of Angelina Jolie. A centuries-old house now called Tree House Cafe looked like a hobbit home from Lord of the Rings, where we hid away as she sipped her coffee and I drank a mint lemonade. We visited one of the oldest soap factories in the world with ingredients such as goat’s milk and olive oil, jasmine and pomegranates, even dates and Dead Sea mud.

We happened to chance upon a Sufi zawiya as we walked through a beautiful archway decorated with lanterns, light bulbs, and an assortment of potted plants, after which we saw a cobalt blue door on our left and an azul blue door with symmetrical red designs, and Quranic ayat like incantations on our right as doors upon doors greeted us.

The air was welcoming yet mingled with the memory of martyrs whose memorials took over the landscape, sometimes in the form of larger-than-life portraits surrounded by complex four-leafed magenta-white flowers; posters above a water spout next to a heart-shaped leaf; a melted motorcycle that, too, was targeted in the neighborhood that hosted the Lions’ Den. We stopped to pray at a masjid, quiet and carpeted.

After a bus ride from Nablus to Jenin, on our walk before entering Jenin camp, Aseel showed me the hospital right outside the camp. She pointed out the barricades created to keep the occupation forces from entering specific streets. This is the same hospital that the occupation forces blocked during the July 2023 attack, which now seems like a lifetime ago. 

What caught my eyes again and again were the two Keys of Return on top of the entrance of Jenin Camp that symbolized so much for Palestinians.

“This is a temporary station,” Aseel read out loud to me. “That’s what it says. We are supposed to return to our homes.”

“Netanyahu said he is planning another big attack, so the resistance fighters are preparing because it can happen any day,” she had told me that evening as we shared Jenin-style knafeh, baked to perfection. Then she stopped, looked at the sky, and said humorously, “Ya Allah, hopefully not today!” And we both laughed because of its potential reality. 

Dinner on the terrace at her uncle’s home was a delicious spread of hummus, laban, fries, cucumbers pickled by her aunt, and arayes — fried bread stuffed with meat. Then we moved the furniture to sleep on mattresses in a room that extended to the rooftop terrace with a breeze, overlooking Jenin Camp and the rest of Jenin City. We could hear gunshots in the distance. The drones were commonplace, and the heat did not relent. Temperatures soared, and the electricity was out when we woke up at 5 a.m. I heard her pray, and later, as we sipped on coffee and had wafters in the early morning at her home, my eyes went to a piece of tatreez, or embroidery, of a bird in flight framed on the wall. Her eyes followed mine and when I said I loved it.

“It used to be my grandfather’s,” she told me. “Of course it’s beautiful — the bird is free.” 

Unexpectedly, Aseel’s mother gifted me a Sprite bottle full of olive oil beholding the sweet hues of its intact health, which I would later ship secretly from Bethlehem all the way to Boston. And then Aseel came to me with a gift, too: a necklace that spoke succinctly about the right to return and live on this earth. Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry was held together with intricate calligraphy carved in the shape of Palestine’s landscape, and I was completely overwhelmed. 

“You are in Palestine, my dear,” she had smiled. “And you are now my family. This is your country, this is your second home, really.”

When I ask her about what brings her hope these days, Aseel tells me about her eight-year-old nephew.

He wanted to eat two meals. I told him that in Gaza they don’t have food. He was complaining about the food, and I told him, they don’t have water. And he heard me because he said, “today, we will only have one meal.” 

I’m amazed at how mature he is. He even said, “We won’t make a special cake on Eid because of the Gazans.” For me, this is a lesson to be learned. He is only eight years old, but he knows. 

We have lost a lot of people in Gaza, but here in the West Bank, we are succeeding because our new generation knows a lot. Ben Gurion would not be happy. He said of Palestinians, “the old will die and the young will forget.” No, the young ask even more questions. The new generation brings us hope. Hope is the new generation.

/sp

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