By REBECCA SZLECHTER, RIKKI ZAGELBAUM

JNS

A new nutrition survey led by the United Nations Children’s Fund shows relatively low levels of acute malnutrition among children in accessible areas of Gaza, which confirms Israel’s repeated rejection of claims that the Strip was experiencing widespread starvation, according to Ofir Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York.

Blood libel

“The truth is always stronger than their lies,” Akunis told JNS in a recent interview in his office.

Akunis recalled facing intense pressure in August 2025 to acknowledge claims of widespread starvation in Gaza.

“All the American media put me and the State of Israel under pressure to admit that there is starvation in the Gaza Strip,” he told JNS. “I insisted there was no starvation, because that was the truth.”

The envoy described the charges that the Jewish state was deliberately starving Palestinians as “Turkish, Qatari and Hamas propaganda” and “just a blood libel against the State of Israel and our brave soldiers.”

UNICEF has published a new population-based nutrition survey based on data that it said it collected between May 31 and June 15, 2026. The survey found low rates of acute malnutrition among children in accessible areas of Gaza, and 12.2% of children were affected by stunting and 4% were overweight.

Truth will out?

The U.N. agency stressed that the survey does not describe conditions in areas that researchers could not access. About 17% of Gazans were excluded from the sampling frame due to access and security constraints, the global body said.

Still, the findings represent an important acknowledgment of the position Israel had maintained, according to Akunis.

“Now, if you will read it in the future, you can see that that was the truth,” he told JNS. “As I always say, ‘The truth always prevails over lies.’”

Of the timeline upon which the U.N. agency released the findings, Akunis said that “it’s better than nothing.”

The envoy added that the delay reflects what he sees as a broader pattern in the international system when dealing with the Jewish state.

“Usually, the United Nations position toward the State of Israel is automatic,” he told JNS. “Unfortunately, nothing new.” He described previous cases, in which initial accusations against Israel were later challenged or disproven. “There’s a lot of examples about the lies,” he said.

The new survey should prompt those who accepted earlier starvation claims to reconsider, according to Akunis. He added that the new data could change the minds of “the honest people.”

“Unfortunately, the people who are actually involved in this will not,” he said. “The industry lies.”

UNICEF also said that the improvements follow an expansion of humanitarian aid and commercial traffic after the October 2025 ceasefire. It said that the progress could be reversed without sustained access and supplies.

Akunis nonetheless described the findings as significant.

“I’m very, very glad and satisfied to see this report from UNICEF,” he told JNS.

The prior accusations that Israel starves Palestinians is “part of the other blood libels against our people,” he said.

“I want to put an iron wall between their lies and the truth, and we must do it,” he told JNS.

The UNICEF survey was based on measurements of 1,335 children up to 59-months-old across 147 clusters. The U.N. agency said that the survey was designed to provide a population-based assessment of nutritional status in accessible areas during the survey period and was not intended to serve as a nationally representative statistic for international comparison.