When the UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a BBC interview, “There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them,” he made a shocking and false claim that fuelled an antisemitic blood libel which spread around world with unprecedented speed.

According to Jewish Onliner (@JewishOnliner), the lie sparked 133,000 posts, which had 685,000 interactions on social media and reached 4.5 billion potential views in just 24 hours—highlighting how fast and dangerously disinformation can spread.

Even now as this article is being written, days after the lie was debunked by the UN who first spoke the lie, Google is still showing the lie as the top results. And as anyone in media knows, people will look at headlines and not even read the full story. Many more people will be deceived by this falsehood long into the future.

As Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

When asked for clarification, the UN initially failed to correct the statement. It was only later that they admitted the figure was not about 14,000 babies dying imminently but rather a projection that 14,000 children could face severe acute malnutrition over the course of the next year if aid access was not maintained. That’s less than 1% of Gaza’s population—at a time when some countries have over 30% or even 50% of their children facing malnutrition.

Globally, over 3 million children die from hunger-related causes each year. Tens of millions are currently starving across the world, often in countries where the media pays little attention and where the UN does not level the same criticism or alarm.

This information is not well known by the public, and sadly this ignorance was weaponised to demonise Israel.

The Real Picture in Gaza

Whilst we have every sympathy with children in Gaza, we must also point out that we do not believe Israel will allow such a tragedy to happen. Despite the hysteria, Gaza is not and has not suffered from famine.

During the six-week ceasefire in January and February 2025, Israel facilitated the delivery of around 380,000 tons of food into Gaza, according to COGAT. That’s enough food to feed the entire population of Gaza for eight months, according to World Food Programme (WFP) standards.

Yes, there are still people in Gaza struggling to find food, but that is largely due to theft by Hamas and local corruption. In many cases, shops do have food, but the prices are inflated because of greed. This is not because Israel is preventing food from entering Gaza—it’s because Hamas is hoarding it, and Gazans are exploiting it.

Setting the Record Straight

To be extremely clear:

  • 14,000 babies in Gaza are not going to die in 48 hours or even in the next year.
  • The lie was started by Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN’s humanitarian aid organisation, someone who should have known better than to lie so blatantly.
  • The false claim was viewed more than 4.5 BILLION times worldwide, spreading hatred globally, and likely sparking more antisemitism and terror.
  • The UK and other governments appears to have reacted to this fallacy and altered their foreign policy and condemned Israel based on this falsehood which indicates how dangerous these lies are.
  • Anti-Israel violence and incitement against Israelis, Jews, and Zionists, is being fuelled by these lies.

British politics has been infected with anti-Israel hysteria

As Lord Polak noted, 13 MPs repeated this misinformation in Parliament.

This “list of shame” includes: Jo Powell, Adnan Hussain, Debbie Abrahams, Ben Lake, Olivia Blake, Tahir Ali, Vikki Slade, Danny Chambers, Imran Hussain, Monica Harding, Carla Denver, Yasmin Qureshi, and Josh Fenton-Glynn.

Most disturbing was Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s response. Rather than correcting the misinformation, he responded with anger and condemnation towards Israel, seemingly swayed by the lie. Even now that the claim has been debunked, the government has not reversed its position. The condemnations of the Labour government, the ending of trade talks, and fresh sanctions on ‘settlers’ remain in place.

It also calls into question who we can trust.

Can we trust the UN if their top humanitarian official spreads such reckless misinformation? Can we trust a UK government that overreacts to fake news, then refuses to change course once the truth emerges? Can we trust the media who still pushed out headlines long after the lie was debunked?

This reveals a deeper ideological bias in British politics. The UK government through its words and actions, is not only demonising Israel but undermining efforts to rescue hostages and combat terrorism. It claims to stand for peace, but it is empowering Hamas.

Indeed, Hamas has openly thanked the UK government. Netanyahu himself warned that rhetoric from France, Canada, the UK, and the UN is emboldening Hamas, not deterring them.

The Lies Fuel Antisemitism

This week we saw two Jewish Israeli embassy staff gunned down in Washington, DC in cold blood. They were executed in a horrific way that is not dissimilar to the attacks on October 7th and every other terror attack that takes place against innocent Israelis.

When antisemitic blood libels are spoken from the highest halls of power, it legitimises the insanity of the anti-Israel lobby. It spurs people to violence because they believe all the lies. The lies distort reality and morph Israel into a monster in people’s minds and shamefully pushed people into justifying acts of violence against Jews, Israelis, and Zionists.

And it is all based on lies. There is no famine in Gaza. There is no genocide in Gaza. Israel is doing everything it can to protect both Israeli and Palestinian civilians while fighting a terrorist enemy that uses its own people as human shields.

Israelis are not Nazis. They are not war criminals. They are defending themselves against a genocidal enemy.

A Spiritual Battle

This is not merely political—it’s spiritual. The fact that so much of the world has been duped so easily shows a spiritual deception. ISIS was rightly recognised as evil. But Hamas, because it wages war on Jews, is somehow “acceptable.” Despite the fact it shares much of ISIS’s ideology.

The hatred against Israel now spans both the radical Left and the radical or “woke” Right. They may disagree on everything else, but they unite in their hatred of Israel.

Some who claim to be Christian and part of the “woke right” are actually duping Christians to turn against Israel. Their antisemitism, hatred, and twisting of Scripture reveal that they do not understand the God of the Bible.

The nations are turning against Israel just as Scripture foretold.

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.” (Zachariah 12:2-3)

Israel is not a footnote of history. Israel is the epicentre of Bible prophecy. The Church must stand up and speak the truth. It’s now or never.

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