This is a classic case of the gaslighting shot heard 'round the world.
And holy smoking gun, didn't it travel at the speed of light? It was that juicy a quote and just that bad for the Israelis.
In a BBC interview yesterday, a guy named Tom Fletcher stated what one had to assume was a fact, coming as it did from an official United Nations representative. And not just any old blue helmet on the ground either. This guy has the official UN diplomatic chops as the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
And what he had to say was pretty horrific about a potential catastrophe of mind-boggling proportions about to unfold in Gaza, and it was all Israel's fault.
“There are five trucks just sitting on the other side of the border right now,” he said Tuesday in an interview with the BBC. “They have not reached the communities they need to reach. This is baby food, baby nutrition. There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.”
Good Lord.
How do you know this for sure, asked the BBC. That's quite a staggering number to be facing imminent death so soon.
Oh, said Mr Fletcher, 'we've got strong teams on the ground.'
...When asked by the BBC how he came to this “extraordinary figure,” Fletcher said: “We’ve got strong teams on the ground; they are at the medical centers, the schools, trying to assess needs.”
The BBC, even as Hamas-y sympathizing as they are, was horrified.
And seriously, who wouldn't be? This ghastly pronouncement didn't come from the thoroughly discredited Palestinian Ministry of Health. It came from a United Nations undersecretary-general!
This was big news and, sorry - the world needed to know Israel was purposefully starving babies, and universal condemnation flew out immediately. Aid trucks laden with life-saving baby food must be allowed to roll into Gaza.
Bastards. How could they do this?
14,000 babies. FOURTEEN THOUSAND. Let that sink in. Now think about the number of children and adults that could be added to that in the coming weeks.
— Katie 🖤💚 (@katieinexile) May 21, 2025
It’s entirely inhumane. How are our governments allowing any of this to happen? pic.twitter.com/4b9OBFu5MH
Makes you sick to your stomach.
In the middle of worldwide, outraged, anti-Israeli howling, the UN suddenly kind of looked like this...
...as they quietly dropped this teensy correction to what their humanitarian chief had asserted was the situation on the ground in Gaza right this very minute and becoming even more dire in the next 48 hours.
...Other UN officials elaborated on his statement and seemed to downplay the time frame of dire consequences.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) told the BBC: “We are pointing to the imperative of getting supplies in to save an estimated 14,000 babies suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Gaza, as the IPC [Integrated Food Security Phase Classification] partnership has warned about. We need to get the supplies in as soon as possible, ideally within the next 48 hours.”
And then the rest of the IPC report on malnutrition, once everyone had a chance to go through it, made the 'misspeak' even worse by noting they were talking about a possible - as in COULD OCCUR - situation in?
Oh, like the next year or so.
...According to the IPC report, 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition could occur among children aged six to 59 months between April 2025 and March 2026. The report’s time frame is one year and not two days.
Could happen. Might not. A year. Two days. Same-same, no?
HELL, no.
But darned if it didn't work great for stirring up the anti-Israel mob and getting the Hamas victimhood narrative spread yet again.
Just search for this. ABC News, BBC, NBC News, Time etc all ran with an obvious lie. Plus countless commentators .
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 21, 2025
You have to know nothing about the situation in Gaza to believe it. It was debunked within 24 hours. Yet the point was narrative building, not reporting. pic.twitter.com/7G0GDvyWhE
Mr Undersecretary General Fletcher certainly shot what he was aiming for, wouldn't you say?
...“I weighed with great thought and care what I should say,” he said. “I felt that we needed to jolt the international community. We know what’s going on; we are on the ground every day. I want to save as many of these 14,000 babies as we can in the next 48 hours.”
Of course, it's only because he wants to save babies.
What's an innocent little jolting slip-up to the international community...when it's for babies?
