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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

UNICEF’s mission is “providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide”

Children in gaza are being intentionally starved by israel blocking food aid. At least 15 people including one infant have been starved to death in the past 24 hours.

UNESCO’s mission is preservation of cultural heritage. Gaza and the west bank are being ethnically cleansed, and their arts and culture have already been physically destroyed by US bombs dropped by israel. This will destroy cultural groups, thus leaving little to preserve.

The world is political. You give someone a goal of preserving culture, or protecting children, and all of a sudden they’ll start speaking out when you destroy culture and starve children.

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Absolutely, children in Gaza, just like in many other war-torn places need help.

The problem is that UNICEF doesn't just provide help. It feels entitled to come up with resolutions that put the blame on one of the parties in the conflict. They aren't military experts. They don't honestly know how the situation came to be the way it is... they shouldn't be talking about it.

Because, what happens is that while they aren't the experts on the subject they choose to opine on, they have a large audience who will listen to them (for other reasons), and they can be mistaken for experts.

When you read an opinion piece from a newspaper, or listen to a politician talking about the issue, you would be right to assume that these people have a degree of familiarity and expertise in the subject they are talking about. Of course, the world isn't ideal, and often times these sources also lack expertise, but this is where the opinions and information should come from. Newspapers are held accountable through various policies for what they publish. So are politicians. But a UNICEF officer, when it comes to politics, is just a private person, like you and I... except they aren't treated like you and I.

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Just to illustrate this further. You believe that:

> Children in gaza are being intentionally starved by israel blocking food aid.

But this is propaganda. There's no way to substantiate this claim. Israeli side claims that Hamas is hoarding aid (or was hoarding, until Israel created an alternative aid distributing organization). So, the aid was coming through, but Hamas used it to extract resources and favors from its constituents.

Maybe true. Maybe not. Neither you nor I know this for a fact. The investigation hasn't commenced yet. And neither you nor I are experts with enough information about the situation on the ground to have reasonable grounds to believe one way or another. Neither is UNICEF. And yet they go out and proclaim that they are, and that the situation is the way they want to see it... And here you are, trapped in this propaganda stream, repeating something you have no actual reason to believe.

> this is propaganda. There's no way to substantiate this claim.

1. Israel blocks aid agencies besides their own from accessing gaza. This is undisputed fact.

2. All evidence from doctors and reporters on the ground suggests that people are starving. Videos of people rioting over food, also pretty solid evidence people are starving.

3. While it is possible “hamas” is stealing food and not sharing - this is a problem easily solved by allowing in more fucking food.

4. If israel actually wanted to kneecap hamas inside gaza flooding it with food would be what they would do. Food has very little value when it’s abundant.

You seem happy to let people starve to death while we wait and see if it’s “true” or not. Disgusting if it’s true, and also disgusting if it turns out to not be true.

So where is the propaganda?

> It feels entitled to come up with resolutions that put the blame on one of the parties in the conflict

Sorry, UNICEF? Citation needed. All i see is them saying violence in gaza is putting children at risk, and there should be a ceasefire. Do you believe that’s blaming someone?

> Israel blocks aid agencies besides their own from accessing gaza. This is undisputed fact.

You are who thinks this is a fact. But it isn't. The aid is being delivered to Gaza. A bunch of international organizations are there, cooking meals, distributing supplies etc. Not only Israeli agencies participate in aid delivery. For example WCK is still there. Israel, legitimately, doesn't allow aid from organizations that feed it directly to Hamas. WCK isn't one of those, so they are allowed to operate there.

> While it is possible “hamas” is stealing food and not sharing - this is a problem easily solved by allowing in more fucking food.

It's not just possible, it's pretty much a given, since they used to be in charge of distribution. They shot people queuing for aid. They sold aid (which was reported by multiple news agencies). They stockpiled aid for their own fighters, which was acknowledged by the prisoners IDF took.

Allowing more food for Hamas will change nothing. They benefit from starvation crisis. It allows them to extort resources both domestically and internationally. So far, Gaza received a lot more aid than eg. South Sudan, and Gaza's population is about 1/5 of South Sudan.

> You seem happy to let people starve to death

Why are you getting so emotional over something I haven't said or implied? I'm not starving anyone to death. I live thousands of kilometers from the events at the moment. I have more information than you do about what's happening there because I used to live in the area and can read the news in the local languages / I know where to find such news, but that's about it.

> So where is the propaganda?

You just wrote it. Well, you didn't invent it, you simply mindlessly repeated it, but still.

> you simply mindlessly repeated it, but still.

Right, not like how you mindfully repeat “facts” sourced directly to the idf - a notoriously unbiased and honest source.

They've been making that claim since the start of the conflict, including calling it a genocide. There have been an overwhelming amount of articles that later had to be retracted about Israel shooting at aid distribution centers. Not a single video of IDF soldiers shooting at them has been shown.

Unless I get to see actual evidence, I'm not inclined to believe this claim. I see articles report things like: "Since the GHF was launched, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians trying to collect food aid, the UN and local doctors say. Israel says the new distribution system stops aid going to Hamas."

And yet there is 0 video evidence of the IDF shooting at them? I don't believe it. There is so much video and pictures floating around social media, yet we don't have any for this claim?

All I can find are articles like this: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/04/middleeast/israel-militar.... All you can see is people taking cover by lying prone on the ground.

Or this one by Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/7/15/video-sho...

Which again shows people prone, bullets shot near them this time.

There's been so much horse-shit and propaganda, I'm not going to believe any claim, unless it is accompanied by direct video evidence.

Upgrading from “i don’t believe hamas doctors” to “i don’t believe UN doctors” even when there IS video just not good enough video? Jesus.

I understand healthy skepticism, but the healthy skeptical response would be “lets get more oversight into place” not “it’s all lies until i see the right video”

There IS video, just not of what's being claimed. With the amount of constant propaganda about this conflict in particular, you cannot trust anything that you can't actually verify. Big media outlets, like the BBC have been caught with their pants down multiple times. Making claims they themselves did not and could not verify. Having to make constant retractions and clarifications because they want to hit 'publish' does not a reliable news source make.

The fact that you can see I'm actually looking for sources, should at least prove to you that I'm trying to verify. In this case I can find no direct video evidence of the claim. And the only news source using a video with no casualties, but at least there's gunfire, is from Al Jazeera. Hardly unbiased.

I do want to know why you think there wouldn't be an overwhelming amount of video evidence at this point. This claim has been made multiple times, there is a lot of video footage being filmed and shared constantly, yet nothing about this specific one?

Hamas, who run Gaza, want to "Globalize the Intifada" and bring violence to Jews worldwide. You speak about ethnic cleansing like if the roles were reversed we wouldn't be seeing the same thing.

This is basically just criticizing Israel for having the means. Clearly both have the will. The two parties are locked into a death pact with each other.

> This is basically just criticizing Israel for having the means.

No, it’s criticizing israel for the will, the means, and the action of murdering tens of thousands and starving millions.

> Hamas, who run Gaza, want to "Globalize the Intifada" and bring violence to Jews worldwide

This is one interpretation of that phrase. Intifada means roughly “shaking off”. A call for international support for shaking off the oppression of Palestinians is how it’s usually understood. I’m not here to defend hamas, but using the words of hamas to excuse the genocide of all palestinians (including in the west bank where hamas does not exist) is disgusting. Like using the words of trump to justify shooting up a walmart.

But you are right in that if hamas was doing the same thing that israel is doing UNESCO and UNICEF would be “getting political” about that too.

> This is one interpretation of that phrase.

And I could always say "the final solution" is referring to my math homework. In the context of the Palestinian occupation, intifada ALWAYS is meant as violent. There is no other interpretation.

Pretending that it doesn't is both bad faith and classic taqiyya.

> The First Intifada was characterized by protests, general strikes, economic boycotts, and riots[1]

Sounds like violence was a small component of the first intifada. So, tell me again how it always means violence? And also how did you get from violence against israeli occupation to violence against all jews?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalize_the_intifada

taqiyya is a new word to me. I can’t help but feel it’s being used as a bit of a slur here - not sure, but just in case i’ll point out that there are examples of basically every religious group hiding their faith when threatened. Jews during the holocaust and in inquisition spain, and catholics in elizabethan england, are historic examples i’m familiar with.

You sure post a lot about without knowing a lot about the culture of whom you're talking about. That word also doesn't mean what you think it does, and even has different meanings to different groups that use it.

I was only raised in it. I couldn't possibly know anything.

Taqiyya is a big part of right-wing conspiracy theories about how Muslims who integrate into Western societies are just faking it and cannot be trusted even if they are model citizens - supposedly they are just biding their time until they are the majority, and then they'll vote the extremists in.

Can you link authenticatic sources to back those claims up?

Do you even know what the intifada means? Or are you using foreign words to make it sound scary?

When the definite form is used , and certainly when used in English and in the context of global events, The Intifada (emphasis added on the to highlight that this is used in definite form) refers to the Second Palestinian Intifada - which was characterized random violent attacks against civilians such as suicide bombings and shootings. Calls to Globalize the Intifada are calls for violent attacks against civilian targets around the world and especially against Jews.

> The Intifada refers to the Second Palestinian Intifada

Source pls?

I understand this is what a lot of people who HEAR “the intifada” believe - but is it what a lot of people who SAY “the intifada” believe?

So, it's against the Jews worldwide, not against the Zionists (including Christian American Zionists) illegal settlers that kill the Palestinian people and steal their land?

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