Prabowo’s claim that Gaza is improving is a dangerous lie

On 22^nd January 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Prabowo Subianto declared that the suffering of Gaza’s people had “very much decreased,” repeating the phrase three times, as if insistence could substitute for truth. He made the remark immediately after announcing Indonesia’s participation in a US-backed initiative called the Board of Peace for Gaza, citing increased humanitarian aid as proof that conditions were improving and suggesting that peace was now a realistic prospect.

That statement was not just wrong. It was grotesque.

At the very moment Prabowo was speaking, Gaza was still being attacked. In the days before and after his remarks, Israeli forces killed Palestinians through drone strikes and gunfire. Children were among the dead. Journalists were among the dead. Civilians were shot near hospitals, near homes, near displacement camps — the last scraps of civilian life left standing. A place where civilians are still being killed by a modern military is not a place where suffering has “very much decreased.” Saying otherwise is not optimism. It is propaganda.

Prabowo’s claim rests on a shameless distortion: that humanitarian aid equals reduced suffering. This is an insult to basic intelligence. Gaza is receiving aid because it has been destroyed. Aid is not evidence of recovery; it is evidence of collapse. You do not need emergency food convoys, tent cities, and field hospitals unless a society has been smashed beyond normal function. Calling this “improvement” is like pointing to body bags and claiming the hospital is working.

The details Prabowo erased are not incidental — they are the truth. Around 22^nd January, families in Gaza were still sleeping in tents in winter cold. People were still burning scraps of plastic for heat. Clean water was still scarce. Hospitals were still overwhelmed. Journalists were still being killed for documenting Israeli military actions. Children were still growing up surrounded by rubble and fear. This is not reduced suffering. This is sustained catastrophe.

And while Prabowo praised humanitarian aid, Israel was actively destroying the humanitarian system itself. Just days before Davos, Israeli authorities bulldozed and shut down UNRWA facilities, attacking the United Nations agency that provides food, schooling, and medical care to Palestinian refugees. This was not collateral damage. It was a deliberate political act aimed at dismantling the infrastructure that keeps Palestinians alive. Celebrating humanitarian aid while ignoring the demolition of the agencies delivering it is not ignorance; it is deliberate deception.

Then there is the political reality Prabowo chose to bury. Days after his Davos statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly declared that there would be no Palestinian state — ever. His far-right ministers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, openly celebrated destruction in Gaza and called for permanent Israeli control. These are not marginal voices. They are the government. They are policy.

So what exactly is Prabowo endorsing when he talks about “peace”? Peace without statehood? Peace without rights? Peace under permanent military domination? That is not peace. It is the normalization of subjugation. It is the management of Palestinian suffering so the world can look away.

Indonesia’s historic support for Palestine was built on moral clarity, born from its own experience of colonialism and resistance. That legacy is now being dragged through the mud. By declaring that Gaza’s suffering has “very much decreased” while civilians are still being killed and humanitarian institutions are being dismantled, Prabowo is lowering the global standard for what level of Palestinian death and misery is considered acceptable.

This is not neutrality. It is alignment with power at the expense of truth.

Presidents do not merely describe reality — they legitimise narratives. When Prabowo says suffering has decreased, he gives political cover to continued violence. He signals that the current level of killing is tolerable. He helps normalise the idea that Palestinians should be grateful for survival without dignity, aid without rights, life without a future.

This is not leadership. It is moral collapse.

Gaza does not need soothing language delivered from luxury conference halls. It needs leaders willing to state the obvious: people are still being killed, humanitarian systems are being torn down, journalists are being silenced, and peace is impossible while Palestinian self-determination is explicitly rejected. On 22^nd January, Prabowo chose not to say any of that.

Calling Gaza’s suffering “very much decreased” while violence continues is not a miscalculation. It is an erasure of reality. And when a president erases reality to make injustice more palatable, he stops being a bystander. He becomes complicit.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.