Diplomatic Gaslighting: How Israel’s Envoy in Portugal Denied Gaza’s Hunger

OPINION

On August 22, 2025, Israel’s ambassador to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat, sat in a Lisbon television studio and denied the undeniable. In an interview with SIC Notícias, he claimed:

“There is no hunger, there has never been hunger and nobody has died of hunger in Gaza. We may see thin children, but that is because they are seriously ill.”
^{_{Oren Rosenblat}}

It is difficult to imagine a more callous and disingenuous statement at this moment in history. Only hours before, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine in northern Gaza — the first time famine has been officially declared in the Arab world. Hundreds of thousands are already in famine conditions; over a million teeter on the edge. Children are not “thin because they are sick”; they are starving because Israel has systematically restricted food, medicine, and humanitarian relief.

“It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment – and a failure of humanity itself”
^{_{António Guterres}}

“As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law – including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population “, said the UN chief, reacting to the famine declaration from the IPC, which is endorsed by dozens of governments, UN agencies and NGOs as the key evidence-based measure of food insecurity and malnutrition.

Ambassador Rozenblat’s words are not a slip of the tongue — they are part of a deliberate strategy. Denying hunger serves two purposes:

1. Deflecting responsibility: If famine is “fake,” then Israel cannot be accused of using starvation as a weapon of war — despite mounting evidence from the UN, Oxfam, Save the Children, and others.
2. Gaslighting global audiences: By telling Europeans that children are simply “ill,” the ambassador hopes to reframe deliberate deprivation as an unfortunate coincidence.

This rhetorical sleight of hand is nothing new. Throughout history, governments accused of war crimes have sought to deny the suffering of civilians. The difference today is that satellite images, nutritional surveys, and humanitarian reports leave no room for ambiguity: Gaza is starving, and Israel’s blockade is the central reason why.

Weeks of images showing emaciated children with swollen bellies and protruding bones make one fact brutally clear: famine in Gaza was not sudden — it was deliberately engineered. This is not a humanitarian crisis by accident. Under Israel’s control, starvation has been weaponized, turning the search for food into a deadly gamble and expanding famine across Gaza.

Diplomats are meant to defend their country’s interests, but they are also supposed to embody credibility. Rozenblat’s denial strips away that credibility. By refusing to acknowledge famine, he not only insults the memory of those already dead from hunger but also mocks the desperate parents watching their children waste away.

To deny famine in Gaza today is to align oneself with cruelty. Oren Rozenblat’s interview was not just insensitive — it was a disgraceful attempt to cover up a crime against humanity.

History will not remember the polished excuses of ambassadors. It will remember the hollow eyes of Gaza’s children, staring out from photos that Europe preferred not to see. Every minute that passes, another child in Gaza starves. And no amount of denial in Lisbon will hide that truth.

©TNPP