I just feel really dumb having to write this because the level of Israel propaganda is pathetic but its useful idiots keep spreading it, so here we are. The latest trope comes from this picture of a HAMAS tunnel entrance. Today, Israel tweeted this:

The original tweet:

This is the entrance to a Hamas terror tunnel in the Bureij camp in Gaza .

Hundreds of kilometers of tunnels built in Gaza with tons and tons of cement and millions of dollars – all invested in terrorism instead of investing resources in a better future for innocent… pic.twitter.com/QWWdNNOZIa

— Israel ישראל 🇮🇱 (@Israel) December 27, 2023

The claims vary but the labeling of the bags in the tunnel roof show that these were food aid bags. Here’s a zoom of the above picture:

In some versions of the spin, these are bags of “UNRWA Concrete”, purportedly used to build tunnels, as if you don’t need to remove concrete from its plastic fibre sack packaging in order to use it. Here are two examples from the many fact free “happy to help out with Israeli propaganda” Twitter accounts:

This account has 13.3k followers. This how bullshit becomes history:

It is a bag of wheat flour. Here is an UNRWA photo of the same bag on the cover of a report “2022 oPt emergency appeal progress report for the reporting period 1 january – 30 june 2022” (see page 1 in link). The caption (see page 2 in link) reads “Cover photo: Emergency food supplies being prepared for distribution at the UNRWA integrated services operation centre, Gaza. © 2021 UNRWA. Photo by Mohamed Hinnawi”:

The bag (enlarged below and circled in the various posts) indeed contains wheat flour:

Here is an enlargement of another bag further down the tunnel shaft:

This is also “wheat flour”. Note the 2005 date on the bag in this AP photo used by the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post. That was 8 years ago, these bags must be everywhere.

Another AFP photo of the same kind of bag from this New Republic article which is very worth reading because it explains why Israel is working overtime to delegitimize and defund UNRWA:

A reverse image search shows that the photo is from 10 April 2013, over ten years ago. Again, these bags must be everywhere:

There is no way on earth it makes sense, as some versions of posts claim, that this is “stolen food aid stored by HAMAS”. No one would store flour in a leaky tunnel entrance. Nor did they ever contain concrete.

These are recycled PU coated Taffeta nylon sacks, that HAMAS filled with dirt, to function as sandbags to protect the tunnels from Israeli bomb blasts.

Now that we’ve established the good news that “HAMAS recycles!” sit back and enjoy the creation of propaganda and myth on Twitter. This guy will post ANYTHING:

Look at some of the douchebags (see what I did there?) forwarding this trope:

This guy is another guy who will simply post anything:

This lady also posts anything, always with her insightful commentary:

He’s a really rice guy:

Take his word for it, he’s an “Arab Expert”:

That’s probably enough, I’ve been enjoying it though. Writing this felt like making one of those fail compilation videos on YouTube, Israeli hasbara version. Very cathartic.

Here’s that New Republic article again. “Critics of the United Nations’ Relief Agency in Gaza Don’t Have Their Facts Straight” by Matthew Reynolds—today the UNHCR Representative to the United States & Caribbean—and dated August 26, 2014!

This is nothing new. Israel has been seeking to isolate Gazan refugees from outside help—an act of genocide—for decades. The demonization of UNRWA and other organizations that offer international support has been a pet project of Israel for the 34 years I’ve been watching this conflict closely. I’ll leave you with Matthew Reynolds’ first two paragraphs, emphasis mine:

It is a very serious charge to accuse the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Palestine of supporting terrorism and one that Alexander Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky made without a scintilla of factual documentation in their recent opinion piece, “Stop Giving Money to the U.N.’s Relief Agency for Palestinians.”

These two critics have misled the public apparently in hopes of scoring a cheap political shot against a humanitarian agency toiling in one of the most dangerous areas of the world. Despite the extreme danger—eleven of my colleagues have already been killed—UNRWA staff bravely continue to come to work every day to help those civilians most in need. Without their herculean efforts, civil society in Gaza would have already collapsed as UNRWA overwhelmingly provides safe shelter, food, drinking water, health care and sanitation to over a million civilians traumatized by this conflict.

Source: https://newrepublic.com/article/119232/united-nations-relief-and-works-agencys-role-gaza-crucial