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News Analysis
Global outrage at the Netanyahu government’s actions has grown since the war began, and the suffering of children in the enclave has accelerated the disdain.
Steven Erlanger, a former bureau chief in Jerusalem, has covered the Israeli-Palestinian issue for many years.
July 31, 2025Updated 7:53 a.m. ET
Some of Israel’s most important Western allies, under political pressure from voters appalled by mounting evidence of starvation in Gaza, now say that they will recognize a Palestinian state. President Trump, himself convinced that Gazans are starving, has sent his Mideast envoy to Israel for the first time in months to look at the chaotic food distribution system.
More scholars are debating whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Opinion polls in the United States and elsewhere show an increasingly negative view of Israel. And there is no clear plan to bring the war against Hamas to an end.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has responded angrily to the growing skepticism. He has said that the reports of starvation are exaggerated, that Hamas must be destroyed, that critics are often antisemites and that Western recognition of a Palestinian state is a reward to Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people.
“The usual Israeli view is that this crisis is another temporary problem,” said Natan Sachs, an analyst of Israeli politics. “But that’s a misreading of the world, because it’s accelerating a global turn against Israel that has dramatic effects, especially among young people.”
As anger grows over widespread hunger in Gaza, Israel risks becoming an international outcast. The deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 remains a vivid, salient event for many Israelis. But for others around the world, the devastation and hunger in Gaza have become more visible and urgent.
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