People gather on the deck of a painted boat bearing artwork and flying multiple flags as it departs as part of a humanitarian flotilla for Gaza from Barcelona, Spain, April 12, 2026. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

For more than a decade, I have been actively engaged in advocating for Israel. Throughout this time, one of the most frustrating challenges has been countering a highly coordinated, emotionally charged narrative about the Gaza Strip — a narrative that, when looked at through the lens of verifiable facts, completely falls apart.

Before the current war, the international community was fed a steady diet of what can only be described as “misery metrics.” We were told by activists, media outlets like Al Jazeera, and various NGOs that Gaza was a systematic humanitarian catastrophe.

The language was carefully chosen to maximize global sympathy. It was called the “world’s largest open-air prison” and, in some of the most offensive rhetoric, compared to a “concentration camp.” We heard constantly about deliberate impoverishment, severe economic suffocation, and a 2012 United Nations report that confidently predicted Gaza would be “unlivable” by the year 2020. But if you paused the emotional music and looked at the actual reality on the ground prior to October 2023, a completely different picture emerged.

The claim that Gaza was a barren, starved prison camp is irreconcilable with the sheer volume of luxury, development, and international business that existed there. Gaza and the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank were home to upscale hotels and resorts like the Al Mashtal Hotel, the Blue Beach Resort, the Roots Hotel, and the Millennium Palestine. There were modern shopping malls, beachfront commercial districts, and the Metro Market complex.

International brands and major corporations operated actively within these areas. Furthermore, the area was saturated with an unprecedented infrastructure of international aid and corporate partnership.

Massive operations by UN agencies like UNRWA, UNICEF, and the UNDP worked alongside major international NGOs like Oxfam, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders. Tech giants like Microsoft, Google, HP, and Intel engaged in regional training and development programs.

This brings us to the fundamental question: what kind of “concentration camp” features beachfront resorts, luxury shopping districts, international tech investments, and a bustling franchise economy? To use such language is a disgrace to history.

The security measures Israel put in place, including the defensive fence, were a direct response to years of relentless terror attacks and suicide bombings. Israel built a barrier to defend its citizens, and Egypt notably built an even more restrictive wall on its own border with Gaza. Yet, despite these security necessities, Israel continued to facilitate daily life in Gaza.

Before the current conflict, between 800 and 1,200 trucks crossed from Israel into Gaza every single day. Israel provided electricity and regularly treated Gazans with severe medical conditions in Israeli hospitals, frequently free of charge.

If the leadership in Gaza had pursued peace, the region possessed the location, the funding, and the infrastructure to truly become the Singapore of the Middle East. Instead, billions of dollars in international aid and materials were diverted. Rather than building a future for their people, they built attack tunnels, manufactured rockets, and purchased weapons.

Then came October 7, the largest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.

When Israel reacted to defend itself and eliminate Hamas, a fascinating shift occurred in the global narrative. Suddenly, previous narrative of total deprivation was momentarily forgotten, replaced instead with immediate accusations of “genocide” and “starvation.”

Once again, the metrics do not match the accusations. The facts don’t fit the narrative — but the world consistently chooses to believe the narrative over the visible facts.

Now, we are seeing signs of what some might call a return to normalcy in the propaganda war. Recently on LinkedIn, posts have begun circulating once again claiming that Gaza is an “open-air prison.” It seems the narrative cycle has reset. We are back to the familiar script, which means Western taxpayers will soon be asked to open their wallets once again to fund the very same cycle.

The facts have always been right in front of us, provided anyone is willing to look past the carefully manufactured misery metrics.

Sabine Sterk is CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.