A video widely circulated across social media has sparked significant controversy after users claimed it showed residents of Gaza throwing fresh meat donated as humanitarian aid into the street because it had arrived on Israeli trucks.
The footage shows around five people unloading cuts of meat from a truck displaying Hebrew writing and tossing them onto the road, while one individual can be heard angrily saying, “Let them eat their fill.”
Coordinated Campaign of Incitement
The video was quickly used by numerous social media accounts to fuel a campaign against Palestinians. It was presented as supposed evidence that reports of widespread famine in Gaza were fabricated, with many posts calling for humanitarian aid to the Strip to be halted altogether.
Israeli accounts rapidly amplified the footage, claiming it disproved reports by the United Nations and international media. They alleged that Gazans were discarding fresh meat simply because it had been delivered on Israeli trucks.
The campaign escalated further as some accounts openly called for humanitarian funding and relief efforts to be cut off. Posts included statements urging people to “let the people of Gaza eat stones instead of feeding them,” while others falsely claimed that Gazans would rather starve than accept aid transported by Israeli vehicles.
Other users mocked the suffering of Palestinians by accusing them of deliberately destroying humanitarian supplies, while some even cited the video as evidence that conditions in Gaza had significantly improved.
At the same time the footage was circulating, the Egyptian Committee for the Relief of the People of Gaza published recent footage of its own humanitarian operations inside Gaza. The organisation’s videos showed the distribution of canned meat products to residents, presenting a scene entirely inconsistent with the claims attached to the viral clip.
What the Verification Found
A visual investigation conducted by Al Jazeera’s Open Source Investigations Unit found multiple inconsistencies that undermine the claim that the footage was filmed in Gaza.
The surrounding neighbourhood appears calm, with nearby homes and buildings remaining intact, conditions that do not reflect the extensive destruction seen across much of Gaza.
The truck carrying large quantities of meat was also not surrounded by crowds of desperate civilians seeking aid, something considered highly improbable given Gaza’s catastrophic humanitarian conditions and severe overcrowding.
A reverse image search led investigators to additional photographs and videos filmed from different angles of the same incident. The material first began circulating on 12 June and was recorded outside a butcher shop named “Maher Awawdeh Meat” in the town of Kafr Kanna, located in northern Israel.
Israeli media reports, including one published by Yedioth Ahronoth, confirmed that the incident involved a local butcher who threw all of his meat into the street in protest over escalating violence and organised crime in the town.
The protest followed a shooting near his shop that directly threatened his livelihood. According to the newspaper, the worsening security situation forced many businesses in Kafr Kanna to close their doors.
These findings were further verified by reviewing the butcher shop’s official Instagram account, where the storefront matched the location shown in the viral footage.
Rising Violence Among Palestinians Inside Israel
The incident also draws attention to the worsening security crisis affecting Palestinian citizens inside Israel, who continue to face an unprecedented wave of violent crime.
During 2025, violence claimed the lives of 252 people within the Palestinian community inside Israel. The homicide rate has been reported to be around fifteen times higher than that recorded in Jewish communities, prompting widespread protests over the failure of Israeli authorities to address the crisis.
Official statistics point to a dramatic disparity in public safety between Palestinian and Jewish communities inside Israel. Last year, the rate of victims of violent crime stood at approximately 120 per million among Palestinian citizens, compared with just 8 per million among Jewish citizens.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, at least 146 Palestinian citizens of Israel had been killed in violent crime incidents since the beginning of 2026.
The broadcaster reported that this represents a 22 percent increase compared with the 120 people killed during the same period the previous year. The figure does not include individuals killed by Israeli police in separate incidents.
