The Israeli government permitted a group of ten American and Israeli influencers to briefly enter the Gaza Strip. The move is part of a campaign to “reveal the truth” about humanitarian conditions for Palestinians, amid mounting international outrage over famine and a rising death toll from starvation and Israeli fire on those seeking aid.
As reported by Haaretz, the tour organized by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs was a rare instance of civilians being allowed into Gaza. A ministry statement said the initiative was presented as a demonstration of the “mechanism for distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza” to “refute the lies spread by Hamas in foreign media.” It added, “The tour was conducted as part of the fight against Hamas’s campaign to discredit Israel—the ‘starvation campaign’—which aims to damage the country’s image on the international stage.”
Participants included Xaviaer DuRousseau, a conservative Gen Z Republican influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, who posted a video showing pallets of food and aid awaiting delivery. “You can hate me all you want for wanting to see the truth, but it won’t change the facts. Israel is NOT the reason many Palestinians are starving,” he stated.
Brooke Goldstein, a Miami-based influencer with 150,000 followers, claimed, “Before the GHF’s arrival, food was delivered by UNRWA directly into the hands of Hamas terrorists,” posting a photo from the U.S.-backed fund’s site in Khan Younis. She wrote that what she saw in Gaza proves “that what the media reports is absolutely false.”
Israeli Druze teen Marwan Jaber, with nearly 250,000 Instagram followers, posted a video criticizing UN members in Gaza, shouting “Shame on you for doing nothing” at workers as he drove by. Earlier this month, Haaretz reported that Israel’s Foreign Ministry allocated tens of thousands of dollars to bring U.S. influencers to Israel.