Fact-checking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress

(WASHINGTON) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before Congress on Wednesday, delivering a joint address to U.S. lawmakers on the ongoing war with Hamas and renewing his call for bipartisan support in the Middle East.

The address to Congress comes over nine months into the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

In a defiant speech that appeared to go off script at times, Netanyahu made several statements that were either false or missing context.

Fact check: Iran is funding anti-Israel protests

As Netanyahu delivered his address to Congress, parts of the U.S. Capitol were occupied by protesters against the war in Gaza who had been there since Tuesday.

The demonstrations come after large-scale protests were held at college campuses across the U.S. in the spring.

“Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building — not that many, but they’re here, and throughout this city,” Netanyahu claimed to lawmakers.

“Well, I have a message for these protestors. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots,” Netanyahu said.

Dismissing U.S. protesters as mostly puppets of Iran is not accurate, but there is evidence to support some of his claims.

The U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran is trying to stoke division among Americans and has even gone so far as to provide financial support to some protests. On July 9, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned Americans to remain vigilant and know if they are accepting financial support from a foreign source.

“We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters,” she wrote in a statement.

But Israel has plenty of American critics without Iran’s meddling — a fact omitted by Netanyahu and acknowledged by the intelligence chief. 

“I want to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza — this intelligence does not indicate otherwise,” Haines wrote.

Polling has found that American support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza has declined since October, according to Gallup, as college campuses erupted in protests this spring over the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

Fact check: Israel is not blocking humanitarian aid, including food, to Gaza

During his address to Congress, Netanyahu claimed that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid to Gaza and that Israel has not blocked the flow of aid, including food, into the region.

“If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it. It’s because Hamas is stealing it,” Netanyahu claimed.

This is not accurate, according to U.S. and international officials, who have reported one major reason food and other humanitarian supplies are scarce in Gaza is because of rules enforced by the Israel Defense Force at checkpoints.

Aid groups in Gaza say there aren’t consistent rules about what supplies are allowed while ground crossings have been frequently closed for security reasons throughout the war.

At one point this spring, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimated that only about a sixth of the trucks needed for residents to survive were getting into Gaza on a daily basis, with international organizations warning the area was on the brink of famine.

Another major reason aid is scarce in Gaza is that aid workers don’t feel safe distributing the aid.

It’s true that many of the aid trucks are getting looted by both Palestinians and criminal enterprises, however, U.S. and international officials say there are other issues too, including rules that prohibit aid workers from carrying protective gear or radio equipment.

According to the United Nations, more than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza as of this spring. U.S. officials have argued that if Israel allows more aid inside Gaza and guarantees security for those drivers, the looting will decrease.

Fact check: Ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza is quite low

Speaking to lawmakers Wednesday, Netanyahu claimed that the ratio of Palestinian civilians to Hamas combatants killed by the Israeli Defence Forces throughout the war is lower than publicly perceived.

“Despite all the lies you’ve heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to noncombatants, casualties in the history of urban warfare,” Netanyahu said, adding, “And you want to know where it’s lowest in Gaza? Its lowest is in Rafah.”

This statement lacks important context and is impossible to verify because of the lack of objective data on the war and past conflicts.

According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 39,000 people have been killed in Israeli operations.  The ministry does not, however, distinguish between civilians and combatants.  At the same time, in an interview last May, Netanyahu said Hamas started with about 35,000 combatants and that about 14,000 were killed.

Neither estimate has been verified by independent sources and it’s not clear how either side arrived at its estimates. International journalists have not been allowed inside Gaza by Israel with the exception of tightly controlled tours by the IDF.

But assuming these estimates are accurate, at least one expert said Israel should be commended.

“Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history — above & beyond what international law requires & more than the US did in its wars in Iraq & Afghanistan — setting a standard that will be both hard & potentially problematic to repeat,” wrote John Spencer, the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

However, not everyone agrees. Critics of Israel’s military operations point to many operations that have disproportionally killed civilians, including the recent rescue operation of four Israeli hostages that the Gaza Health Ministry says killed 274 Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others.

A U.N. spokesman has previously called publicizing these calculations “tasteless.”

“We’re not in the business of establishing those kinds of ratios,” Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General, said in December 2023.

As for Rafah, it is accurate that Israel pulled back on operations that could have killed many more civilians than it did, however, what Netanyahu didn’t mention is that the Rafah operation played out under significant pressure by the U.S. Concerned that Israel would use 2,000-lb bombs in highly populated areas, President Joe Biden withheld a shipment the bombs to Israel, which eventually led to an evacuation plan for refugees.