Is Famine Imminent?

Are children starving in Gaza? None of us know the true answer based on news coming out of the territory. We have known since the beginning of the war why none of Gaza’s reporting is reliable. Hamas vets every report and writes most of them, in its propaganda wing, known as The Gaza Media Office. That is how the reports in The New York Times, BBC, All Jazeera and Middle East Eye all share the same unified points that are published on the Electronic Intifada.

Many Gazan journalists have been shown to be Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives. Hassan Eslayeh, the “photojournalist” used by AP, BBC and CBC, was invariably at the right place at the right time. He has rejoined his number one fan, Yahya Sinwar after being identified by Israel as a member of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade. He is being eulogized in much of the press while Israel is demonized for murdering journalists.

Sinwar kisses Eslayeh in happier times.

The Free Press published an article last week called the Gaza Famine Myth and while there is lots of evidence of fabrication in the past, it does not answer the current question. Up to 80% of available food was not counted by the UN in April since it was sold rather than donated. Why anyone would be surprised that a genocidal terrorist organization continuously lies is beyond me.

Social media from Gaza has shown overflowing markets last week with plenty of overweight customers. A video from Gaza today of civilians fleeing during a bombing show an adequately nourished group of citizens. There are no listless children with swollen bellies. Certainly there can be pockets of hunger existing next to healthy populations. But I have yet to see pictures of large numbers of malnourished children, the way one saw from Biafra when I was growing up or currently in Sudan. It’s always easy to find a photo of an emaciated child, completely unrelated to famine. Children die here in the West of illness or neglect and pictures are available.

Market in Gaza last week

Market in Gaza last week

Honest Reporting has posted solid evidence of food available in Gaza since Israel flooded it with humanitarian aid in the six weeks prior to the siege.

In fact, according to the World Food Program, enough food entered Gaza to last until August. In spite of an ongoing war and great losses of farmland, food is produced in Gaza. Not every morsel is donated by humanitarian aid organizations.

Why do I still have doubts? Left-wing Israeli media reports that IDF insiders substantiate claims of malnutrition, although the information was provided by The New York Times. Ronen Bergman once again found a few Israeli officers who will speak anonymously. In an army of hundreds of thousands does this cross the threshold of a legitimately newsworthy source or has Bergman found the officers with another agenda?

Living with this uncertainty is extremely uncomfortable so people choose a side, but it isn’t based on known facts. I treated patients with anxiety for decades. Uncertainty almost invariably presented the greatest problem. Coping with disaster was surprisingly easier than living with the threat of catastrophe.

No one is doubting the enormous suffering of Palestinians being ruled by Hamas, a government that values killing Jews above the wellbeing of its own people. Anecdotal reports would favour famine while researched data suggests the opposite but two months of siege must have had some effect. Is this the boy who cried wolf? NGOsrepeatedly threatened imminent famine, which never materialized.

If starvation really is imminent, then why have all the NGOs and UAE refused to work with Israel’s imperfect aid plan? If innocent children are on the verge of death, certainly a difficult plan that attempts to separate civilians from combatants is worth something, even if you hope to change it eventually.

It’s not beyond imagination that Hamas, which openly celebrates their own civilian’s deaths as one step in the plan to vilify, alienate and destroy Israel, would kill their own children or allow them to die as martyrs. If they rejoice in teenage soldiers dying, why not their younger siblings? That would certainly fit with both reports, that IDF soldiers fear imminent starvation as well Honest Reporting claims that more than enough food has entered the territory to last until August.

It is interesting that human rights lawyers, discussing starvation during a siege, when applied to Yemen and Syria in 2021, found it to be a complex issue and suggested that civilian deprivation could be considered collateral damage in some cases when the enemy army is starved. None of these nuances are ever applied to Israel, where there is no question in most international circles that Israel must continue to supply Hamas since no civilian casualties seem to be acceptable in this war. I doubt a similar analysis would be published about Israel.

Given these conflicting reports, it’s beyond time for Netanyahu to step down. He elevated far right leaders, such as Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who have been open about their desires to see heinous treatment of Palestinians, including starvation. Netanyahu, says almost nothing. This allows the global community to demonize Israel by ascribing the motives of barely reformed Kahanists to the entire population.

Opposition head, Yair Lapid has stated that he would support the government in any ransom deal to free the hostages. Netanyahu does not need to rely on his far right coalition. Since more than 2/3 Israelis would prioritize releasing the hostages over disarming Hamas, it is easy to present Netanyahu as caving to the Kahanists. But if he does not need them, why would he persist? Haviv Rettig- Gur, an Israeli journalist who is one of the best analysts of Israeli politics, would not be considered a right winger. He has stated that he understands hostage families who demand the payment of any ransom price for the return of their loved ones. However, he pointed out that Israel taught Hamas, with the exorbitant price it has paid to free hostages such as Gilad Shalit, that the kidnapping of Israeli hostages would be rewarded. He would prefer that Hamas and the many terrorist armies that surround Israel, are made to understand that hostages will have no value to them. He has honestly admitted that he fears more for his own children in the future than other people’s children now. He wants Hamas entirely defeated, as the Nazis and imperial Japan were in WWII. Otherwise, this will be just another long brutal battle in a series of wars against Islamist terrorists.

Netanyahu‘s strategy, to starve Hamas of a significant source of income in order to pressure it to release the hostages, may not be a corrupt scheme to maintain power and avoid jail. But to the extent that the world believes it to be and relies on that view to further demonize Israel, is upsetting to diaspora Jews. They know that this view of Israel serves to increase the ever rising tide of Jew hatred. But to Israelis, involved in what they understand to be an existential war, that concern is less important. Yet since Israelis also doubt Netanyahu’s motives, it is time to call an election.

Is there imminent famine in Gaza? I frankly don’t know. But we have to understand that nothing coming from the UN, the Gaza “health authorities”, NGOs or much of mainstream media helps to decide the issue since none of them have proven themselves to be credible when it comes to Israel.