Hamas exploits aid - or Israel? Bangkok Post oped by Orna Sagiv

 Debunking Narratives of Disinformation, Documenting Realities in Gaza

by Tim Garbutt

Humanitarian Emergency: Siege, Not Strategy

The Bangkok Post article by Israeli Ambassador Orna Sagiv gamely tries to frame Gaza’s collapse as a Hamas tactic:

Bangkok Post - Hamas exploits humanitarian aid

But this deflects from the Israeli blockade, as the occupying power, which has prevented over 6,000 truckloads of aid from entering Gaza. Aid agencies like UNRWA and MSF call this a manmade famine, not a logistical failure.

• Over 1,400 civilians killed near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid depots — surpassing the October 7 Hamas raid toll

• Starvation used as a weapon: ICC charges allege deliberate use of hunger as a method of warfare

• UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive—they are walking corpses”

• IDF media blackout persists despite mounting international scrutiny

And Ms Orgiv tapdancing through a minefield in hobnailed boots in suggesting that Hamas is powerful enough to halt aid - after almost 2 years of Israeli bombing raids? Such claims if not mere fiction would be an indictment of the failure of the IDF military - and this week the sudden u-turn by Israel to allow aid trucks in to Gaza.

But still a media blackout of reporters such as from the Bangkok Post being allowed to see the situation on the ground for themselves and free of military censorship or shootings - Gaza with the most journalist deaths (186) ever recorded and more than of all the 20C wars put together(!).

CPJ has confirmed that 20 journalists were deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli forces, classifying these as war crimes under international law. Victims include:

• Hamza Al Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief

• Ismail Al Ghoul, featured in the documentary Gaza: Journalists Under Fire

• Walaa Al Jabari, killed with her entire family while pregnant

Starvation and Collapse

Beyond airstrikes, journalists are now dying from starvation. The AFP Journalists’ Association issued a harrowing statement:

“None of us can remember seeing a colleague die of hunger.”

Al Jazeera’s Anas Alshariff wrote:

“We stand in front of the camera trying to look stable, but the truth is that we are falling apart inside.”

Several correspondents have reportedly collapsed live on air, and major outlets including Reuters, AFP, AP, and the BBC warn their staff are unable to feed themselves or their families

GHF Shootings & Whistleblower Testimony

And former U.S. Green Beret Anthony Aguilar, who worked as a subcontractor for GHF, described the aid sites as “designed as death traps.” In interviews with BBCTV, Democracy Now! and France 24, he stated:

“I witnessed war crimes—indiscriminate shootings, stun grenades thrown into crowds, and lethal force used against starving civilians. The U.S. is complicit.”

Aguilar’s account includes:

• Israeli tanks firing into crowds

• U.S. mercenaries using live rounds

• A Palestinian woman knocked unconscious by a stun grenade while collecting aid

• Being asked to shoot civilians for their IDF client

The WFP adds: “GHF parcels fall short of nutritional standards and exclude clean water, medicine, or fuel. Aid seekers face lethal risk just to access basic calories.”

Airdrops: Humanitarian Theatre

While the Bangkok Post oped praises airdrops as a way to bypass Hamas, aid experts argue they are more spectacle than solution. Airdrops have caused civilian deaths—five people were killed in March when a parachute failed. 

Jeremy Bowen of the BBC on an IDF airdrop plane was banned from filming the Dresden or Ben Tre destruction of Gaza out of the window or the air drops would be cancelled.

Airdrops deliver less than 0.2% of Gaza’s daily aid needs, often result in looting or black market diversion, and are condemned by the UN as expensive, inefficient, and a distraction from viable land-based aid routes.

Israel creating the shameful and ludicrous image of the only airdrops in the world outside of the remotest regions of Sudan - with aid trucks queueing up just 10km away: a 30 minute drive.

In recent days, Gaza has seen its largest coordinated airdrop operation to date, with aircraft from France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Jordan, UK and the UAE dropping over 126 packages of aid across northern and southern Gaza. This marks a dramatic escalation in international efforts to address the worsening famine, but experts warn the strategy remains deeply flawed.

French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the urgency, stating:

“Faced with an urgent humanitarian crisis, we just conducted a food airdrop over Gaza. But airdrops are not enough. Israel must grant full humanitarian access to address the risk of famine.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) and UNRWA have condemned the reliance on airdrops, calling them “100 times more costly than trucks” and “insufficient and inefficient”. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini added:

“If there is political will to allow airdrops, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings."

With Israel this week forced into a 10am-8pm daily ceasefire after international concerns of famine and ethnic cleansing/genocide and Nazi-style ghettos and concentration camps, the UN can recommence aid trucks - halted after risk of IDF shootings as of 3 UK aid workers for World Central Kitchen in April last year.

Diplomatic & Legal Reckoning

• Canada, Malta, and the UK express grave concern over humanitarian conditions and move to recognise Palestine state at UN General Assembly in September. 

• France also now formally recognizes Palestine (along with almost every nation in the world), increasing diplomatic pressure on Israel

• ICC arrest warrants issued for Israeli leaders, including PM Netanyahu, citing:

• Starvation as warfare

• Targeting civilian infrastructure

• Obstructing humanitarian aid

•  Israeli soldiers arrested at a festival in Belgium for war crimes

• EU concern at Bibi visiting Greece during the Iran strikes

As a state official, Ms Orgiv seems to have forgotten the many protests by Israelis over Bibi's rule, corruption charges and protests over Gaza and lack of IDF effort on releasing hostages - several shot dead(!) by Israeli forces.

Since November 2023, Israel has witnessed sustained mass protests demanding a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas. These demonstrations—often led by families of hostages—have grown into one of the largest civil movements in Israeli history.

Scale and Impact

• Over 500,000 people protested nationwide on 1 September 2024, following the discovery of six hostages killed in Gaza.

• The Histadrut, Israel’s largest labour union, staged a nationwide strike the next day.

• Protesters have blocked highways, surrounded government buildings, and staged hunger strikes.

Haaretz Analysis – July 2025

A recent Haaretz article by Amos Harel highlights growing tensions between the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and political leaders pushing for annexation of Gaza. The IDF reportedly struggles to balance military operations with political pressure, while civil unrest continues to mount.

Causes and Demands

Protesters cite:

• Refusal by Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire or prisoner exchange

• Famine in Gaza and mounting civilian casualties

• Police brutality against demonstrators

Groups involved include:

• Hostages and Missing Families Forum

• Kaplan Force

• Standing Together

• Women Wage Peace

• Opposition parties like Yesh Atid and The Democrats

Casualties and Arrests

• 35+ protesters injured, including two critically

• 15 police officers injured

• 1,004+ arrested, with ongoing detentions

Ms Ogiv might reflect that if Bibi has broken Gaza he seems to have done the same to Israel - and shot down in flames Israel's standing in the world.

The Start-Up Nation now routinely compared to Nazis and viewed as The Genocidal-Apartheid Nation.

BBCTV (Hamas-run too? And the UN?) documentaries showing Israeli settler attacks n West Bank and a repressive apartheid military state - even reports of Thai workers, as well as Palestinians, banned from air raid shelters during the Iran crisis as they were foreigners.

Thai Workers Barred from Israeli Bomb Shelters

Amid escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, viral videos surfaced showing Thai and other foreign workers being denied access to bomb shelters during air raids. These incidents sparked international outrage and raised serious questions about racial discrimination and civil defence inequality.

What the Footage Shows

• One widely circulated video shows Thai workers standing outside a locked underground shelter, pleading for entry.

• An Israeli man allegedly responds by refusing and slamming the door closed.

• In another clip, a Chinese worker claims to be excluded.

• A Ukrainian woman in Tel Aviv reports being turned away.

Disputed Narratives

Some Israeli sources claim the videos were mistranslated or misrepresented, noting that in one clip, the man greets the Thai workers in their language and invites them in. However, the broader pattern of exclusion has been corroborated by multiple witnesses and social media accounts.

Structural Inequality

• According to The Marker, 25% of Israelis lack access to reinforced shelters - and almost no shelters built in Palestinian areas.

• Channel 12 reports 56% of homes lack secure rooms, with minority and foreign communities disproportionately affected.

Human Rights Concerns

These incidents highlight a systemic failure to protect non-Jewish residents and foreign laborers, many of whom work in agriculture and elder care. Critics argue that Israel’s civil defence infrastructure is racially stratified, leaving vulnerable populations exposed during missile strikes.

Political Visits & Fallout

• USA Envoys Witkoff and Huckabee visited Gaza today — specifically over concerns of GHF aid shootings and IDF restricting aid

• Their presence seen as symbolic of Western complicity so far or first stirrings in USA of aid failures

While UK MP's and public are concerned at 500+ UK RAF spy flights over Gaza for Israel plus the training of Israeli troops in UK, Israel Air Chief visit to UK with supposedly a secret UK-Israel alliance and F35 jet parts to Israel.

And increasing concern over the lobby power of Labour Friends of Israel and Tory Friends of Israel in Parliament much as the Israel lobby in USA. Priti Patel the former UK FM sacked twice(!) for secret meetings with Israel. 

Surely an Israel Report as a Russia Report is overdue for foreign government influence in UK? Even a review of Israeli nukes programs given the Iran nukes raids?

Final Thought

The Bangkok Post oped’s attempt to reframe Gaza’s humanitarian collapse as a tactical ploy ignores the siege-induced starvation and legal consequences now unfolding. 

Aid should never be weaponized—whether through airdrop theatrics or political blame games. The ICC’s involvement signals that international law is watching, and the moral test lies not in rhetoric, but in restoring dignity and access to life-saving aid.

The wider issue as evidenced in such one-sided opeds is the failure of Israeli strategy: faced with the horrific Hamas raid and 1,200 killed, Bibi has managed to turn the whole world against Israel and kill not just 1,400 aid victims but 60,000 Gazans plus 20k children and level Gaza as if with a nuclear bomb. 

And the wider Israeli war in the West Bank, then Lebanon, then Yemen, then Syria and then Iran (all of them weeks way from nukes the Israeli mantra?) looks to be part of a genocidal blood lust in the Middle East turning the Abraham Accords into dust. 

But what should Ms Sagiv do as a senior Israeli-Thai figure and previously active in returning Thai hostages and bodies to Isaan? 

Securing an Israeli pledge for Thai workers access to bomb shelters low hanging fruit if Israel seeks another 30k far workers to brave bullets and bombs and Bibi's far right racism?

Buddhist temples built and protected as Judeo-Christian churches are in Thailand, but not Gaza it seems? Following a deadly Israeli strike on the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City on 17th July, Pope Leo XIV issued a powerful appeal for peace, denouncing what he called the “barbarity” of war and urging the international community to uphold humanitarian law. Israel falling to the level of the Myanmar junta or Putin in bombing churches and towns?

A boost in Thai-Israel Trade, with Gaza Reconstruction, and Support Funds/Insurance to offset the risks faced by Thai workers?

And certainly if such opeds as Ms Sargiv's are fruitless disinformation - isn't there a glimmer of hope in BIMSTEC? Both Thailand and India key actors in the organisation and the largest rice providers in the world. And all just a short sail to the Suez Canal and the IPC5 famine zones of Sudan and Gaza.

Shouldn't the Gaza man-made famine by Israel be the last famine of any sort in the 21C with a tsunami of rice and foods from BIMSTEC Thailand and India. Even to Myanmar as the Civil War there stumbles to elections of a sort?

The world has plenty of food and money and merely requires the will to deliver it. With Bibi and his fellow-travellers facing a Hague jail cell shouldn't Ms Sagiv help solve famine rather than create it with the thinnest of excuses for Bibi's carnage in Gaza?