Famine in Gaza?

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

I suppose the OP is going to claim that Oxfam hates Israel and is pro Hamas.

Gaza hunger figures “worst on record” - says Oxfam
Published: 18th March 2024

Latest IPC findings show that Famine is projected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in the northern governorates of Gaza and North Gaza. Read the Famine Review Committee report and the full IPC's Gaza Report  

In the IPC’s five-tier classification of food crises, Gaza now has the largest percentage of a population to receive its most severe rating (IPC phase 5 - catastrophe) since the body began reporting in 2004. It has also never been recorded that an entire population (or 100%) be in IPC Phase 3 or worse.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/gaza-hunger-figures-worst-record-says-oxfam

Obviously Gaza is receiving some aid and had stocks of food prior to the war. Also, some subsistence food types that would normally be tended have grown wild.

When Russians experienced potential famine in the late 1990s, many survived by eating food they had planted in their dachas. Of course, Gaza is much more urban.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Starving baby Israel's fault

The well-groomed, well-fed Palestinian doctor with the dashing high fade says it's because there's no formula milk.  Why is the World Food Programme, which organizes the food trucks, not giving them formula milk?  Is the WFP committing genocide?

This is really disingenuous and disgusting

530 tons is about 1 million pounds.  The average baby needs 1.5oz of formula every 3 hours, or 12oz per day, which is 0.75 lbs.  The U.N. says there are 20,000 babies in Gaza.  That's 15,000lbs of formula needed per day.  1,000,000lbs is enough to last about two months.  So I would say it isn't enough -- if all the babies were on formula.  But you can breastfeed as well.  I have no idea what the ratio of breastfed:formula babies in Gaza is, so that would determine whether or not the formula has been sufficient.  For instance if it was 50:50, so only 10,000 babies in Gaza need formula, then there has been enough supplied to last four months.

At any rate, there isn't such a severe formula deficiency that it would cause the degree of malnutrition seen in the video.

Define 'baby' because that's probably not what the U.N said.

This is what the U.N (UNICEF) said:
GENEVA, 19 January 2024 – “In the 105 days of this escalation in the Gaza Strip, nearly 20,000 babies have been born into war. That's a baby born into this horrendous war every 10 minutes.

So, is a person no longer a 'baby' after 3 1/2 months?

In British Columbia, the advice is to use baby formula for 9-12 months, which is considerably longer than 3 1/2 months.

Half of the population of Gaza is under 18, so hat there would be just 20,000 babies is absurd.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/gaza-hunger-figures-worst-record-says-oxfam

Once again, the report only says "famine is imminent in Northern Gaza."  These various U.N. agencies and NGOs have been crying wolf about this for months.

Here's an article by Human Rights Watch.  Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza.

On November 17, the WFP warned of the “immediate possibility” of starvation, highlighting that supplies of food and water were practically non-existent. On December 3, it reported a “high risk of famine,” indicating that Gaza’s food system was on the brink of collapse. And on December 6, it declared that 48 percent of households in northern Gaza and 38 percent of displaced people in southern Gaza had experienced “severe levels of hunger.”

wait, hold up, what were those dates again?  November 17?  December 3?  December 6?  Gaza was "on the brink of collapse" and experiencing "severe levels of hunger" and supplies of food were "non-existent" and starvation was "immediate" more than four months ago?

Seriously, doesn't anyone else see any red flags with all this stuff?  This isn't an isolated example, we've been getting reports every week since the invasion started issuing similar dire warnings that widespread famine and death is just around the corner in Gaza... and then another couple weeks go by without it happening.

Meanwhile it's always accompanied by condemnations of Israel and allegations of "using starvation as a weapon of war", like this one from the Oxfam report:

Oxfam’s report today shows how Israel is causing these horrifying figures, by deliberately blocking food and aid from going into Gaza. It has been using starvation as a weapon of war for over five months now. The humanitarian situation in Gaza has actually worsened since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) specifically ordered Israel to enable more aid.  Israel’s deliberate manufacturing of suffering is systemic and of such scale and intensity that it creates a real risk of a genocide in Gaza.

I specifically want to highlight the part about Israel deliberately sending less aid after the ICJ "ordered" (lol) Israel to enable more aid.

Let's look at the actual facts -- the UNRWA's own data.  Here we go again.

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZTVkYmEwNmMtZWYxNy00ODhlLWI2ZjctNjIzMzQ5OGQxNzY5IiwidCI6IjI2MmY2YTQxLTIwZTktNDE0MC04ZDNlLWZkZjVlZWNiNDE1NyIsImMiOjl9&pageName=ReportSection3306863add46319dc574

back in December, the Kerem Shalom border crossing was closed and all aid went through Rafah.  So Gazans were getting about 100 trucks per day.  Starting in January the Kerem Shalom crossing opened and aid has increased to 150-200 trucks per day.  This is the UNRWA's own data, saying that aid has nearly doubled since December.  

Famine and starvation are not the same as death. Not babies obviously, but a severely malnutritioned adult can survive for 2-3 months with water but no food.

Think of concentration camp survivors.

There is some aid getting in and their is subsistence food growing wild in some parts of Gaza.

GAZA, March 25 (Reuters) - As the U.N. Security Council demands an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and concerns grow that famine may take hold, the territory's hungry civilians are foraging for a wild green plant called Khobiza for lack of anything else to eat.

The numbers of deaths will ramp up very quickly if this situation persists, which is a very ghoulish thing to argue about.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Famine and starvation are not the same as death. Not babies obviously, but a severely malnutritioned adult can survive for 2-3 months with water but no food.

Think of concentration camp survivors.

There is some aid getting in and their is subsistence food growing wild in some parts of Gaza.

The numbers of deaths will ramp up very quickly if this situation persists, which is a very ghoulish thing to argue about.

This is why pro-Israel people keep talking about how fine the Gazans look though.  I've seen videos that feature plenty of overweight Gazans.  I'm certainly not a fan of the kinds of rude comments I've seen pro-Israel people making about the weight of Palestinian women, but the point stands that they certainly don't look like the concentration camp survivors who actually experienced starvation.

I mean this is what I was saying when I talked about the doctor before.  This guy doesn't look like a concentration camp victim.  He looks to be in good health and even has the time and resources to get a nice shave and high fade.  I mean more power to him, he's a good looking dude and he's doing God's work in that hospital.  But they didn't have American Crew Men's Hair Fiber in Auschwitz.  It undercuts the comparison.  Which in turn undercuts the entire argument about intentional mass famine, which would be a genocide.

This article from The Economist contains the following claims.

1. "The UN says Israel routinely denies approval for aid convoys. Earlier this month it bombed a food-distribution centre. Israeli forces occupy most of the farmland."

4. "[In Gaza city] only a small handful of supply convoys have been allowed in."

The U.N. also says that 200 trucks per day are getting through, the majority of which are in Northern Gaza, which as my original post demonstrates, is sufficient to adequately feed every single Gazan.

2. "Increasingly there are areas [in Gaza] where local crime families have stolen the little food brought in and are selling it for profit."

what would you like Israel to do about this, start shooting gangsters who disguise themselves as Palestinian civilians and steal the aid from food trucks?  We all know what the headlines would be.

This is one area I think we do both agree that Israel should be doing better.  Israel should crack down harder on criminal gangs in Northern Gaza who are stealing food, many of which I would guess are allied with Hamas.  In fact, I think if Israel finds which houses are being used as headquarters for those gangs, or finds underground shelters where they're storing weapons, they should hit them with airstrikes!  But we both know the international community's tolerance for further destruction and bloodshed in Gaza City.  Instead, Israel will be expected to combat criminal gang activity without engaging in combat.  And every single gangster they shoot will be posthumously rebranded as a civilian.

3. "Data the IPC has gathered indicate that in February 29% of children under the age of two in northern Gaza were suffering from acute malnutrition. Some 66% of families there went without any food for 24 hours at least ten times last month."

I would like to see the data and methodology for this because there is no reason 66% of families should be going without food for 24 hours when there is copious food available.

5. "Israel claims its war is to destroy Hamas', not the civilian population, and has denied that it is intentionally starving Gaza. But some senior Israeli politicians have called for exactly that and security officials have admitted that withholding supplies is 'a lever of pressure on Hamas to release Israeli hostages'."

this thread is about the reality of what's actually happening in Gaza, not the polemic of some wingnut Israeli politicians.

I have no idea what videos you are referring to but there is a period during starvation that can cause bloating and that may be what is occurring.

Why does malnutrition cause stomach bloating? Kwashiorkor is a form of acute malnutrition that occurs due to protein deficiency. It can cause swelling, loss of appetite, lack of muscle and fat tissues, and more. Kwashiorkor is a serious condition that can happen when a person does not consume enough protein.

https://borgenproject.org/malnourished-people-bloated-stomachs/

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

I have no idea what videos you are referring to but there is a period during starvation that can cause bloating and that may be what is occurring.

Why does malnutrition cause stomach bloating? Kwashiorkor is a form of acute malnutrition that occurs due to protein deficiency. It can cause swelling, loss of appetite, lack of muscle and fat tissues, and more. Kwashiorkor is a serious condition that can happen when a person does not consume enough protein.

https://borgenproject.org/malnourished-people-bloated-stomachs/

That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about social media posts I've seen where pro-Israel people freeze-frame videos of Gazans and highlight obviously overweight women and mock them for being fat during a period of alleged famine -- you are on the internet so I'm sure you can imagine the comments written.

Like I think that's a pretty nasty, wretched thing to do.

But I also think it's wretched to act like the conditions in Gaza are equitable to Auschwitz or Dachau or any of the other concentration camps that the grandparents of the Israelis endured.  So I do get the point being made.

On the one hand you have people claiming the conditions in Gaza are similar to Auschwitz, where Jews were kept on 400 calorie/day rations and reduced to skeletons with bloated bellies, gaunt faces, loose skin and bones.  On the other hand you have videos of reality on the ground where people look absolutely nothing like that and in fact are perfectly healthy.  There's a clear contradiction between the two.

I would have no way to prove the veracity of these videos.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

I would have no way to prove the veracity of these videos.

One thing I always find interesting during global conflicts is to go on SnapChat and look at the Snap Map hotspot to see what people are posting from some particular area of the world.  It's been annoying during this war because there are so many snaps in English that are either propaganda against a blank background, or sad face girl selfies with CashApp/Telegram requests (I'm starving can you please send me money CashApp in profile).  You have to flip through anything with English text to get to the snaps in Arabic that are actually for the local audience.

Right now go do this and come back and let me know whether the Gazans look like starving concentration camp survivors or just perfectly normal people.  I specifically didn't look before posting this because hey maybe I'm wrong and one of the first videos will be a bunch of starving people.

I'm sure other people can do it, but I don't have snapchat (or Tik Tok or Whatsapp or a smart phone) and I'm not really interested in these things.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Something else that I don't think has been mentioned yet: who is actually providing the aid?

Because in article after article, it seems that the aid coming into Gaza that would ostensibly feed every Gazan is largely coming from the US and other international organizations, and is not coming in because of Israel's efforts, but despite them.

It still wouldn't feed every Gazan. It takes about 300 trucks a day (which aren't all food aid) to feed every Gazan.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

OK folks.  So on the one hand you have me taking the numbers provided by the United Nations and the truck contents ledgers from the World Food Programme and doing some basic, transparent arithmetic to figure out how well Israel is feeding Gaza.

On the other hand, you have some guy just pulling a "300 trucks" number out of his ass.

Who you gonna go with?

You're right I did pull it out of my ass rather than look it up again. It's actually 500-600 trucks a day required to ensure that Gazans are minimally healthy and not merely surviving.

To meet its minimum needs, aid agencies and U.N. officials say Gaza currently requires 500 to 600 trucks a day, including humanitarian aid and the commercial supplies that were coming in before the war. That’s about four times the number of trucks getting in now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/destruction-lawlessness-red-tape-hobble-aid-gazans-go-hungry-2024-03-25/

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

I suppose the OP is going to claim that Oxfam hates Israel and is pro Hamas.

they were selling The Elders of Zion on their bookstore website 4 years ago cite, but yeah, I'm sure they're ALL not bigots.

Or maybe they were - albeit misguided in this case - free speech absolutists?

We have had similar arguments for the last 80 years about Mein Kampf.

if they were also selling Mein Kampf and other controversial books I would have no problem with it and I have no idea if they were or not.  I would assume not, but that's not fair.  Frank will let us know I'm sure (by not addressing it is my guess).

NGO monitor accuses Oxfam of being anti Israel
https://www.ngo-monitor.org/ngos/oxfam/

which Oxfam denies
https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-oxfams-position-israel-palestine-conflict

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

You're right I did pull it out of my ass rather than look it up again. It's actually 500-600 trucks a day required to ensure that Gazans are minimally healthy and not merely surviving.

Ah, the 500 trucks number.  I'm honestly surprised we made it to page two of this thread without someone tossing it out.  Let's take a look at the report on what trucks were going into Gaza right before the war started.

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/movement-and-out-gaza-update-covering-august-2023

In August, 12,076 truckloads of authorized goods entered Gaza through the Israeli and Egyptian-controlled crossings. This is 18 per cent more than the volume of goods entering in July, 36 per cent more than the monthly average in 2022, and 8 per cent more than the monthly average just before the blockade in 2007. However, Gaza's population has grown by 60 per cent since 2007, and so have their needs.
Among the goods that entered Gaza, 42 per cent were construction materials, and 22 per cent were food supplies. About 3 per cent were humanitarian aid items facilitated by international organizations, primarily food and medical supplies.

400 trucks a day, but only 25%, or 100/day, were food or humanitarian aid.  Nearly half of them were construction materials, which obviously aren't relevant to the imminent famine this thread is about.

This is an irrelevant comparison. You can say everybody involved is anti Israel, but the only quote important in that article is this:

To meet its minimum needs, aid agencies and U.N. officials say Gaza currently requires 500 to 600 trucks a day, including humanitarian aid and the commercial supplies that were coming in before the war. That’s about four times the number of trucks getting in now.
In March there has been an uptick, with an average of 150 trucks entering Gaza each day.

We know this from your link:
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/movement-and-out-gaza-update-covering-august-2023

In August, 392 truckloads of authorized goods exited Gaza through the Israeli and Egyptian crossings. This represents a 3 per cent decrease compared with July and is 59 per cent lower than the monthly average in 2022.

Of course, that is a small percentage compared to the number of incoming trucks, however:

About 49 per cent of the goods that exited Gaza were destined for the West Bank, while the remaining 51 per cent were exported to Israel. The exiting goods included vegetables (40 per cent), textiles (23 per cent), fish (10 per cent), and other items, including furniture, scrap copper, and aluminum, among others constituting the remaining 27 per cent.

So, prior to the war Gaza exported vegetables and fish to both Israel and the West Bank.

Certainly there was humanitarian food aid trucked into Gaza prior to the war, but Gaza also had an agricultural sector that fed most of its own people. 

According to the U.N and the Aid agencies, 100% of the population of Gaza is suffering at least some food shortages.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

This is because Hamas are not the occupying power and do not have the capacity to bring in food.

Hamas are bad guys for very many other reasons, but as the occupier of northern Gaza, Israel are responsible for what happens there.

Israel brings in food.  Hamas steals the food and keeps it from the Palestinians.  Israel sends soldiers to protect the food.  Hamas shoots the soldiers.  Palestinians try to prevent Hamas from stealing their food.  Hamas shoots the Palestinians and says Israel did it.

End result: Hamas are the heroes, Israel are the genocidal monsters.

You should’ve just said this at the start instead of trying to deny an obvious humanitarian crisis.

Nobody is denying that there is a humanitarian crisis, that much is obvious.  It's a war zone, of course there's a crisis.

The question is (A) is Israel getting enough food into Gaza.

And the follow-up question is (B) if not, is it because Israel is intentionally starving the Gazans to try and kill them -- which would be a genocidal tactic.

In my original post I demonstrate that the answer to (A) is "yes", which makes (B) moot.

If Israel is giving people food and then Hamas is stealing the food from them at gunpoint, then that would make Hamas responsible for any starvation, not Israel, yes?

Your mathematical calculations, such as they were as they were loaded with assumptions, started with the premise that there were 200 trucks a day getting into Gaza which as you've now acknowledged is more like 150 a day on average.

Definitely an increase and more than I had thought, but certainly your math is filled with assumptive holes.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Your mathematical calculations, such as they were as they were loaded with assumptions, started with the premise that there were 200 trucks a day getting into Gaza which as you've now acknowledged is more like 150 a day on average.

Definitely an increase and more than I had thought, but certainly your math is filled with assumptive holes.

The last five days have been 224, 206, 193, 139, 137.  I would expect we'll get to 150-200 again today (it's 78 so far).  The Kerem Shalom crossing looks to have been closed for Shabbat the last two weeks.  Not sure what's up with that, it wasn't before.

150 is probably still enough (after all, I got to 1500 calories per Gazan at only half of the food) but 200 is better.  I hope it stays at or above 200 for most of the rest of the war.

The point is that if that happens, which is inconsistently happening currently, it is enough to say that Israel is providing sufficient food aid just in terms of raw food.  Which is contrary to the extremely popular current narrative.  I bet if you polled Americans and asked them "is the food Israel is allowed to come into Gaza sufficient to feed the Gazans" like 95% of them would say no.  But it is!  And this is a good thing!

There are no assumptions baked into this math.  All of it is based on real data provided by the United Nations and various aid agencies.  The question of "is that aid actually being distributed equitably to Gazans once it enters Gaza" is a separate question and I make no claims or assumptions about this.  I think even if Israel were to double the amount of food going in it would still have this problem, because Hamas would still be stealing all of it to then re-sell to Palestinians for cash they can then use to buy black market weapons from Jordanians to use to kill Israeli soldiers.

Yes, whether the food actually reaches its intended destination is one of your assumptions and the other is that the trucks average 20 tons of food. (OK, I missed the U.N Link you had on that.) So, you are correct about that. Although with the increase in the number of trucks, it isn't necessarily the case that they are as loaded as initially when very few trucks were getting through, so that is still an assumption but possibly a reasonable one.

The percentage of trucks containing food is another assumption you made, but I think that's a reasonable assumption.

Your total calculation of caloric intake based on the amount of food is also based on assumptions though.