Key Takeaways:
- CNN investigative reporter Katie Polglase appeared determined to find Israel guilty of fomenting famine in Gaza, using misleading claims and misconceptions to back up this conclusion.
- Many of her claims were based on selective or superficial facts that did not provide her audience with a proper understanding of the reality on the ground.
- This was not only a case of bad investigative reporting but bad journalism that is unbecoming one of the leading news organizations in the world.
One of CNN’s top investigative reporters, Katie Polglase, recently turned her analytic lens to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, producing a report entitled “How Israeli military actions led to Gaza’s famine.”
Instead of an in-depth analysis of the situation in Gaza, Polglase’s investigation featured superficial claims that have been circulating since the beginning of the war in Gaza as well as an interview with the IDF’s International Spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, where the impression was that she was using him as a means of promoting her own views instead of engaging in a substantive discussion.
The following are just some of the misconceptions and misleading claims that Polglase put forward in her nearly nine-minute report.
Israel, Gaza & Water
Early on in her report, Polglase claims that some view Israel as weaponizing water in its war in Gaza. To back this up, however, she appears to disregard Shoshani’s response and promotes claims that are either lacking in context or of questionable relevance.
For example, she refers to Israel turning off three water pipes at the beginning of the war as evidence for Israel’s contribution to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. However, she either ignores or glosses over three salient points:
- Those pipes only provided 9% of Gaza’s water before October 7.
- Israel turned on two of those pipes within a few weeks.
- The third pipe was not shut off by Israel but was damaged by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.
Similarly, Polglase highlights a UN claim that 90% of Gazans do not have enough water for all their needs. What she fails to mention is that this claim is from early 2025 and that Israel has undertaken several steps to help mitigate this problem, including providing fuel for water facilities, powering the Khan Younis desalination plant, repairing damaged pipelines, and aiding in the construction of a UAE-sponsored pipeline from Egypt.
Polglase fails to mention that Hamas is responsible for wrecking pipelines. The Palestinian terror group has a history of digging up valuable water pipes and turning them into crude rockets, and there have been several incidents where rocket misfires downed power lines that are required for the functioning of Gaza’s water infrastructure.
Is Israel Delivering Enough Aid?
Polglase claims that Israel is not allowing enough aid to enter Gaza, drastically reducing the daily amount of aid trucks needed to enter the coastal enclave in order to provide enough sustenance for its two million inhabitants.
Polglase cites aid organizations that claim that Gaza needs the daily entry of at least 500 aid trucks, as occurred before the war. However, this claim, peddled by several aid organizations since the beginning of the war, is based on a faulty understanding of the pre-war reality.
Between 500 and 600 trucks indeed entered Gaza daily before the war, but not all carried aid, and only approximately 70 trucks carried food aid. Thus, the reliance on the number of 500 trucks to claim that the current delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip is insufficient is a red herring that does not reflect reality.
To further her case that Israel is not letting enough aid in, Polglase notes that only roughly 115 trucks have entered the Gaza Strip daily between May and August 2025. While this might be technically true, it does not show the whole story.
According to the numbers provided by COGAT (which Polglase relies on), the average might be 115 trucks per day, but the number of trucks rose every month between May and August. For example, May saw 969 trucks enter Gaza, but June saw almost double that, with 1,833 trucks entering the enclave. By August, 6,697 trucks (over 215 per day!) entered Gaza.
Thus, while technically correct, the average of 115 trucks per day is far from accurate.
Is Hamas Stealing Aid?
Contrary to Israeli claims, Polglase says there is no evidence of systemic theft of aid by Hamas.
Polglase bases this on an internal review conducted by USAID that was then shared widely by mainstream media organizations. According to the media’s presentation of the review, USAID investigated 156 incidents of aid being stolen and found no instance where Hamas was responsible for this theft.
However, as outlined by The Free Press, this is far from the whole story.
First, the review of aid theft wholly relies on self-reporting by aid agencies (UN bodies and NGOs) that are tied to USAID and that operate in Gaza. As Hamas controls Gaza with a heavy hand, it is highly unlikely that these organizations would point the finger at them even when they are guilty of the aid theft due to the fear of “violent retribution by Hamas.”
Second, the Office of USAID’s Inspector General (a separate body) informed Congress on July 30, 2025, that it was investigating “credible allegations of Hamas interference, diversion, and theft of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as allegations of smuggling contraband into Gaza through humanitarian aid shipments.” Thus, it is clear that USAID has not definitively exonerated Hamas for stealing aid.
By failing to mention both of these salient facts, Polglase seeks to convince her audience that it is an unimpeachable fact that Hamas has been found not responsible for widespread aid theft when this is simply not true.
Is Israel Targeting Those in Need of Aid?
Polglase also accuses Israel of targeting aid deliveries in Gaza, harming both those delivering aid and those seeking this vital lifeline. To prove this, she points to several incidents where Israeli forces fired on vehicles that either belonged to aid organizations or that were delivering aid, which Shoshani refers to as “tragic incidents.”
As opposed to viewing these as unfortunate exceptions, Polglase appears to present these as part of a deliberate pattern of Israeli targeting of aid.
In one particularly cynical moment, Polglase insinuates that Israeli fire was responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people while attempting to receive aid on February 29, 2024. However, this is a false insinuation: The vast majority of those who died were either stampeded by the crowd during the chaos that ensued around the arrival of the aid trucks or were crushed by the trucks themselves.
While she is quick to point the finger at Israel for violence related to aid distribution, Polglase appears to be content completely downplaying the role of Hamas and other terror organizations in aid-related violence, including disguising themselves as humanitarians while engaging in terror activities, allegedly shooting at Gazans congregated at aid distribution points, and murdering those involved in aid schemes that are outside Hamas’ reach.
Is There Famine in Gaza?
Polglase wraps up her report by noting that “The international body classifying food now says famine has set in in much of Gaza.”
Like much of the above, this claim too is bereft of context and nuance.
First, the IPC did not find famine “in much of Gaza” but in one of Gaza’s five governorates, the Gaza Governorate (home to Gaza City).
Second, this classification is not without controversy. As HonestReporting noted when this famine was first declared in late August 2025, several analysts have pointed to concerning aspects of the classification that signal a biased review committee that was intent on declaring a famine regardless of the facts on the ground.
Some of the questionable aspects of this famine classification include:
- The skewed reliance on hospital records (as opposed to field surveys).
- The baseless presumption of a higher mortality rate from malnutrition than what has been promoted by Hamas authorities.
- The use of only partial statistics to achieve the results needed to declare a famine.
- The inclusion of two virulently anti-Israel academics on the review committee.
When it comes to Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, one can be critical of certain policies and question whether it is doing its utmost to safeguard Gaza’s civilians while fighting the Hamas terror network that is embedded throughout the coastal enclave.
However, this is not what Katie Polglase has done in her “investigative” piece on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
It appears that she concluded that Israel was guilty of fomenting a famine in Gaza and then presented a variety of superficial claims and context-free assertions as evidence for her preconceived conclusion.
This was not only a faulty investigation–it was bad journalism.
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