Fact-checking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress

By Zeena Saifi, CNN

(CNN) — In his speech to Congress on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, pledging to carry on with the war in Gaza until Israeli hostages are released and Hamas is eliminated.

He defended Israel’s actions, pushing back against criticism that the war has gone on for too long and resulted in too many civilian casualties. In doing so, he made a number of claims about the war in Gaza that were either false, lacked context or were presented without evidence to support them.

We break them down here:

Aid entering Gaza

Claim: Netanyahu said Israel has “enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza” adding that it amounts to “more than 3,000 calories for every man, women, and child in Gaza.”

Fact: More than a dozen aid agencies working in the territory have said that Israel’s statistics on truck entries “fail to address several vital components necessary for an effective operational response”.

“The mere entry of trucks into Gaza does not guarantee that the supplies reach the intended recipients due to safety and security reasons,” they said, adding that “reported numbers do not differentiate between types of cargo, often mixing commercial goods with critical humanitarian aid, which obscures the real picture of assistance reaching those in crisis.”

CNN has reported on Israel’s arbitrary and contradictory criteria for the entry of aid and the strict rules it enforces at checkpoints.

Rafah death toll

Claim: Netanyahu said a commander in Rafah told him that there practically no civilian deaths in the city with the exception of “a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people.”

Fact: There have been multiple reports of several strikes in Rafah that have resulted in civilian casualties.

The incident Netanyahu appeared to refer to occurred in May and killed at least 45 people at a camp for displaced Palestinians. The airstrike injured more than 200 after a fire broke out at the camp following the strike, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics.

In the same week, at least 29 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli attacks on displacement camps in Rafah, according to Palestinian and UN officials.

CNN has verified videos from Rafah and spoken to several health officials, humanitarian workers and eyewitnesses who have reported civilian fatalities as a result of Israel’s military assault on the city.

Ratio of combatant-civilian casualties

Claim: Netanyahu said the war in Gaza has “one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare.”

Fact: Israel has been saying since early on in the war that its ratio of civilian to terrorist fatalities is very low, but experts have cast doubt on the claim.

In November, then-Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told CNN that Israel believes that it has killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas militant, saying the ratio is “tremendously positive.” Asked about the claims, Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who served in Iraq, told CNN the comments were “dead wrong,”

Conricus said that when the Israeli military reported how many fighters it had killed, it was referring to combatants, “people who are fighting.” In Gaza, thousands of residents are employed in Hamas-run administrative agencies but carry out civilian duties.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health doesn’t distinguish in its reporting between combatant and civilian deaths but has previously said that some 70% of casualties in all of Gaza have been women and children.

Open-source monitoring by watchdog group Airwars found a “high correlation” between the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s civilian casualty data and what Palestinian civilians “reported online,” according to a new  report.

More than 39,000 people have died in in Gaza since October, when Israel launched a war against Hamas after it attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

Iran funding US protesters

Claim: Netanyahu said that the US director of national intelligence recently revealed “that Iran is funding and promoting anti-Israel protests in America.” He also said: “When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.

Fact: The suggestion that most or all anti-war protesters are pawns of Iran is not accurate, but US intelligence has indicated that Iranian government actors have tried to pay some protesters.

Last month, the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that Iran is attempting to covertly stoke protests in the US related to the war in Gaza, posing as activists online and, in some cases, providing financial support to protesters. But Haines also said she wanted “to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza,” adding that the intelligence “does not indicate otherwise.”

Starving Gazans

Claim: Netanyahu said the International Criminal Court’s allegation that Israel is starving people of Gaza is “utter, complete nonsense” and a “fabrication”.

Fact: On October 9, Israel declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying he would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to the enclave.

Israel has since eased some of those restrictions, but aid agencies say the food that is getting into the strip is only a fraction of what is needed, leading to widespread hunger. Israel’s military operations in Gaza, they say, also hinder the safe distribution of food. In April, USAID Administrator Samantha Power said it is “credible” to assess that famine is already occurring in parts of Gaza.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, noting that high ranking Israeli officials “have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel” and that the “policy” is “being carried out by Israeli forces.”

Hamas stealing aid

Claim: Netanyahu said that if Palestinians in Gaza aren’t getting enough food, “it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it.”

Fact: There have been some anecdotal reports from Gazans of Hamas stealing aid, although it’s not clear how rampant it is.

Israeli officials have been making the claim that Hamas was stealing aid since October. UN Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings told CNN then that Hamas wasn’t stealing aid because aid wasn’t coming in.

US Special Envoy David Satterfield in February denied the allegations that Hamas has stolen aid, saying that no Israeli official had presented him or the Biden administration with “specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance.”

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller did however say in May that one shipment coming from Jordan was briefly diverted by the group before it was recovered by the UN. CNN cannot independently confirm the claim.

Aid agencies have said that there have been cases of looting by the public due to Israel’s military operation leading to a breakdown in public order and safety.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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