As we reported yesterday, Hamas wrote a stern letter to Human Rights Watch for its report that the "bombing" of a hospital in Gaza was the result of an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. We don't know if Human Rights Watch has apologized yet.

Kenneth Roth is the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, and he's weighing in that Israeli hostages were starved. They subsisted on rice, and occasionally they'd get a piece of pita bread to share. 

Roth notes that the Palestinian civilians are going hungry too, and the reason is that Israel has cut off the supply of food to Gaza (even though they just trucked in humanitarian aid as part of the hostage deal).

The AP reports:

Initially, they ate “chicken with rice, all sorts of canned food and cheese,” [78-year-old Ruti] Munder told Channel 13, in an audio interview. “We were OK.”

They were given tea in the morning and evening, and the children were given sweets. But the menu changed when “the economic situation was not good, and people were hungry.”

Israel has maintained a tight siege on Gaza since the war erupted, leading to shortages of food, fuel and other basic items.

So the hostages enjoyed fine dining until Israel decided to shut off the food supply. Look how well they treated the hostages they kidnapped!

How did those people end up hostages anyway? Did something happen?