As the world watches gruesome live footage of dismembered, displaced, and starved Palestinian civilians bearing witness to nearly 10 months of genocide in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech full of lies to the U.S. Congress on July 24. 

In his address, Netanyahu criticized the International Criminal Court multiple times. The ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan had requested arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and his defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity on May 20.

Nearly 80 House Democrats and six Democratic senators boycotted the speech, while thousands demanded his arrest for war crimes in protests outside the U.S. Capitol. 

According to a new Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor report, Israel has killed over 45,000 people in Gaza, including 15,800 children, and has injured over 88,000 others. 

Here is TMJ’S fact check of Netanyahu’s false claims: 

“Israel is not starving civilians” 

Netanyahu told U.S. lawmakers that the ICC prosecutor is lying about Israel “deliberately starving the people of Gaza.” He claimed it is “complete fabrication,” and that “Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza.” 

According to UN data, 28,018 food trucks have entered Gaza since the start of Israel’s assault on the Strip. In early May, Israel seized the Rafah crossing, where most aid trucks passed into Gaza. 

This left the population relying on the Karem Abu Salem crossing, decreasing the number of food trucks permitted to enter Gaza.

In February, the UNRWA revealed that Israel blocked a shipment of food for 1.1 million people in Gaza. 

In April, Israel killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers as they were delivering food to starving civilians.

In May, American director of the U.N. World Food Program Cindy McCain told NBC’s Meet the Press that northern Gaza has reached a “full-blown famine” that is moving south due to Israel’s severe restrictions on humanitarian aid flow. 

In June, McCain said in an interview that the south of Gaza is “right on the edge” of famine. 

On July 4, the Palestinian Red Crescent revealed in a statement on X that 96 percent of the population in Gaza “suffers from severe food insecurity.”

“Israel does not target Palestinian civilians” 

Netanyahu claimed in Congress that the ICC prosecutor wrongly accused Israel of “deliberately targeting civilians.”

He said that Israel “dropped millions of flyers, sent millions of text messages, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way.” 

Netanyahu failed, however, to mention Israel’s intentional targeting of hospitals, markets, school shelters, refugee camps, and designated safe zones.

Since October, Israel has continuously targeted hospitals and ambulances. It has blocked civilians from reaching healthcare facilities by targeting access roads, and has abused, arrested, and killed healthcare workers. 

Netanyahu also falsely claimed no civilians were killed in Rafah. In May, Israeli forces bombed Rafah, which was designated “safe” by Israel. 

The attack happened 48 hours after the ICC ordered Israel on May 24 to stop its military assault on Rafah, reopen the border crossing, and enable the movement of people and humanitarian aid. 

On May 26, Israel razed a refugee camp to the ground, killing at least 45 people, including many children. Footage of charred bodies and babies with heads and limbs blown off were documented on social media. 

The massacre sparked worldwide condemnation. Netanyahu called it a “tragic mistake.”

Global Leaders Respond

Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin described the attack as “barbaric.” He said “one cannot bomb an area like that without shocking consequences in terms of innocent children and civilians.” 

Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide called the attack a “material breach of the decision of the highest court of the world.” He said the “compulsory order from the ICJ ordering Israel to stop its attack in Rafah” is “compulsory” and “binding.”

In June, a video shared across Israeli telegram channels and news outlets revealed that Israel, with the help of U.S. forces, used the “humanitarian” U.S. pier to facilitate the Nuseirat refugee camp massacre that involved both ground and air attacks.  

According to the footage, Israeli soldiers hid in a humanitarian aid delivery truck to enter Nuseirat along with two military vehicles. 

According to London research group Forensic Architecture, the area in Al-Mawasi that Israeli officials had designated as a safe zone has been attacked by Israel at least 10 times since May.

Thousands of Palestinians had taken shelter there.

On July 16, Israel dropped eight 2,000 pound bombs on the area, killing at least 90 Palestinians and injuring 300 others. 

The U.N. has condemned Israel’s consistent use of highly destructive bombs supplied by the U.S. 

Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that “the requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimize to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign.”

The U.N. report accused Israel of committing “grave war crimes in Gaza— including torture, using starvation as a weapon of war, and genocide.”

In May, UNRWA Chief Philippe Lazzarini blasted Israel’s so-called safe zones as “false and misleading.”

“The Israeli authorities continue to issue forced displacement orders also known as ‘evacuation orders.’ This is forcing people in Rafah to flee anywhere and everywhere,” he wrote on X. 

He added that “since the war began, most people in Gaza have moved multiple times: on average once a month. They desperately sought safety that they never found.”

“Hamas burned babies alive”

Netanyahu also spewed propaganda that was debunked last year by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He claimed that Hamas “burned babies alive” on October 7, while there is no evidence to support this statement. 

He also said Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7, a claim that Haaretz revealed was incomplete in a November report stating that Israel killed some of its own people at the music festival. 

Other Israeli reports also documented that Israel killed its own civilians in Be’eri, a settlement near the Gaza border where Hamas held Israeli hostages in homes.The Israeli military fired tank shells, killing both Hamas fighters and Israeli hostages, including children.

“Pro-Palestine protests are funded by Iran” 

Netanyahu called Pro-Palestine protesters Iran’s “useful idiots,” spewing insults and false claims about the anti-war movement for Palestine. 

He further claimed that U.S. protesters are bought by Iran and that demonstrations against Israel’s crimes call for the genocide of Jews. 

The international uprising against Israel and U.S. complicity in the genocide in Gaza have been compared to similar anti-war movements throughout history, such as the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more. 

Israel’s war crimes have outraged anti-Zionist Jews, renowned international leaders, and human rights organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace. 

The unprecedented level of violence Israel has engaged in has sparked protests worldwide. 

In December, more than 100 international human rights organizations and social movements called on the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials to stop the “genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against Palestinians.”  

In January, South Africa took Israel to the World Court for its ongoing genocide in Gaza, and its over 75 years of apartheid against Palestinians. 

No ceasefire deal

Netanyahu added that “the war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms and returns all the hostages, but if they don’t, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’s military capabilities, end its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.”

Hamas has repeatedly stated it would release the hostages in exchange for an end to the genocide, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip.

Netanyahu, however, has consistently rejected a permanent ceasefire as part of a hostage deal, claiming Israel must eliminate Hamas to prevent future attacks. 

Israeli families of those held captive blasted Netanyahu for leaving a ceasefire deal out of his speech in Congress, failing to secure the return of hostages. 

“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel”

Netanyahu thanked President Trump for “all the things he did for Israel,” including “recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the American embassy there.”

The move sparked global condemnation from world leaders.

He called Jerusalem Israel’s “eternal capital,” but history proves otherwise. 

Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Jerusalem was given special status based on its religious significance to the three Abrahamic faiths. 

Israel took full control of the city after occupying the western half of Jerusalem during the 1948 Nakba, and East Jerusalem at the end of the 1967 Naksa. 

This illegal annexation violates international law, which clarifies that an occupying power does not have sovereignty in the territories it occupies. 

East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory, a reality that is reflected throughout Palestinian history, and is widely accepted by the international community.