Starvation is spreading in Gaza -- and treating it won't be easy - Full article at link

[cliffside]

Experts warn that famine is unfolding in Gaza — and that treating severe acute malnutrition will take more than just increasing food aid to the enclave.

Full article
https://wapo.st/4otlDrP

".... In the first week or two of treatment, malnourished patients are at a greater risk of refeeding syndrome, in which electrolyte and fluid shifts can lead to serious complications such as seizures, respiratory failure and cardiac arrest, Pooja Yerramilli, an assistant professor and hospitalist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote last year.

.... All four of Gaza’s specialized centers to treat malnutrition are overstretched and running low on fuel, “with supplies expected to run out by mid-August,” the WHO said in an email.

“We’re seeing the shortages on the medical side; we’re seeing it on the nutritional side,” Mohammed Fadlalla, a doctor and the medical activity manager of Gaza’s al-Zawaida Surgical Field Hospital with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said in an interview this week.

.... The spread of severe malnutrition has wider impacts, too: Children who survive can be left with long-term health problems, while people injured in bombings, explosions or shootings, or infected by diseases, can take much longer to recover — overwhelming the health system further.
“Every one of our patients that we’re operating on has some level of malnourishment, just based on how their body is healing,” Fadlalla said, with wounds taking “much, much longer to heal than they normally should or would” and increased infections...."

[cliffside]

1. Israel bans fishing in Gaza amid food shortage ABC NEWS

Video is 2:30 minutes

Beginning of the transcript

"On the shores of the Mediterranean, Gaza's fishing boats lay idle in the sand. Once a lifeline for this community, the boats and their crews risk death if they venture beyond the shallows..."

[vanessa_ca]

2. An estimated 14,500 Holocaust Survivors died nearly immediately upon liberation from Refeeding Syndrome

Israel's starvation policy is what Rabbi Yehuda Amital called "a great chillul hashem" (desecration of God) when thousands of Palestinian refugees were massacred at Sabra and Shatila.

“My entire being shakes and trembles out of fear of the Day of Judgment, for as it is known, for the sin of chillul hashem, even Yom Kippur does not atone.” - Rabbi Yehuda Amital

[cliffside]

4. To be rescued and then to die :( but now we know better because of that experience ...

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/04/19/1245553753/starvation-malnutrition-holocaust

'Famine has been a threat to humanity since ancient times.

But it wasn't until the end of World War II that scientists began to investigate what starvation actually does to a person's body.

Now aid advocates are calling for those lessons to be applied to today's food emergencies including the crises in Sudan, Gaza and Haiti..."

[gulliver]

3. Israel needs to take over Gaza as soon as possible to prevent this

Once the Gazans are freed from Hamas captivity the supplies they need will get to them. Hamas is the main malefactor in any Gazan shortages. Indeed, all of the Gazan losses to date are attributable to Hamas, an extreme right-wing group that is the enemy of all true liberals and progressives.

[Eko]

5. I mean, all that seems to fly in the face of reality.

Israel bombed Gaza, civilians died from those bombs.
Israel stopped food and aid going into Gaza, now they are starving.
I understand this is in reaction to what the terrorist shits hamas did attacking Israel but it still does not pass the muster.
If someone kills one of my family members and I kill one of theirs in reaction then I still killed them. If that happened would you say that the person who killed my family member killed their family member or that I did?

[OilemFirchen]

6. HAMAS attacked Israel, but ISRAEL is responsible for the subsequent deaths and putative starvation?

Thanks for sharing.

[Eko]

7. Yes, I dont see why you have a problem with that.

In wars like in life the people who actually killed someone is the person who killed that person. When we talk about the civilians killed in Germany during WW2 by the American bombers we don't say that those civilians were killed by Germany, we say they were killed by Americans, specifically American bombers. Why people are trying to argue differently is quite interesting. Do you not see the fallibility of your argument? Just on its face it is illogical.

[OilemFirchen]

8. Here. I'll help.

I've sat back nearly three years experiencing others being berated for conflating Gazans with Hamas. They all know better now, don't they?

Do you?

(Yes that was rhetorical. No, there's no need to respond.)

[Eko]

9. Im not even sure what you are saying.

I think you are conflating who started a war with who is doing the killing. hamas started it, so they are responsible for all that happens to a degree. The people killed by Israel are still killed by Israel though. With the logic you are using Israel can nuke all of gaza and it will have been hamas doing it.

[OilemFirchen]

11. You don't get it. I understand. I'm not surprised.

But thanks nonetheless.

[Eko]

12. Yes, I literally dont understand what you are saying.

"I've sat back nearly three years experiencing others being berated for conflating Gazans with Hamas. They all know better now, don't they?"
1st. What does this have to do with our conversation?
2nd. So for 3 years you saw others being "berated" for conflating Gazans with hamas.
3rd. They all know better now? Who? The ones doing the berating of the ones being berated?
4th. What do they all know now?
5th. Once again what does this have to do with our conversation?

[OilemFirchen]

17. This is ridiculous.

1) At the outset of this war, some were conflating Hamas with Gaza. Those individuals were rightfully admonished. Hamas had attacked Israel on October 7 - not the Gazans, who were afforded the presumption of being the territory's citizens.

2) Accordingly, the conversation generally shifted to the appropriate parties being participants, though lazily by describing the war as being between Netanyahu (and all of the juvenile names assigned to him) and Hamas.

3) It took only a moment before the conversation shifted to describing the parties as Israel and Hamas. Do you see the problem? If there was appropriate pushback, I never noticed it. I was unable to participate for a lengthy time and am only now, on rare occasion, willing to do so. But the bastardization stuck, didn't it? Sorry that you happen to be my target amongst the vast majority who are, giving the benefit of the doubt confused, but the comment to which I replied was a perfect example - Gazans died from bombs dropped by Israel. Gazans are being starved thanks to Israel. Hamas started it, but Israel is now to be held in contempt.

To be more clear, let's humor ourselves and state that Israel is the the citizens of the country, okay? So what's the verdict? Are the Israelis accountable for what happens in Gaza, or is it Netanyahu (or the Knesset or the Likud Party)? Ultimately, it doesn't matter - obviously - as the propagandist narrative has taken hold, and as the majority of the Western world is just fine with that obscenity having become a natural description of the ongoing war. I don't speak in those terms, and will, albeit infrequently, call it out every time I see it. Either this is a war between the governing authority of a country and the governing authority of a territory, or it's a war between its people. I say it's the former and you, with all due deference, can't make up your mind.

4) I fucking hate having to be so explicit four responses deep into a comment I made that was, itself, explicit.

[Eko]

21. Ok

So we separate Hamas with Gaza civilians and Israel with Israeli civilians. When I speak of Israel attacking Gaza civilians I don't think there is anyone out there that thinks I mean Israeli civilians attacking Gaza civilians so I wouldn't naturally think to denote it as such. When we say Russia is attacking Ukraine no one I know gets upset and says that is wrong because we all know it means the Russian government attacking Ukraine. Say America attacked Iraq and no one thinks you are speaking about American civilians attacking Iraq everyone understands that it means the American government. The reason it had to be pointed out that some were conflating Hamas with Gaza is that a lot of Gaza civilians were getting killed instead of hamas, people started to object to it and others were saying it was justified because their government was hamas.
So what's the verdict? Are the Israelis accountable for what happens in Gaza, or is it Netanyahu (or the Knesset or the Likud Party)?
Yes, all of them are accountable to a small or larger degree.
Lets re-frame it.
So what's the verdict? Are the Gazans accountable for what happened in Israel, or is it Hamas?"
Yes, all of them are accountable to a small or larger degree.
Of course its the civilians and especially the civilians who are against their Governments action that hold the smallest degree of accountability.
When we talk of America attacking Iraq I dont wash my hands of it and say I am not at least partially responsible even though I was against it 100%. My country did that, emphasis "My". I dont say "The American government attacked Iraq and killed lots of people when we didnt have to" I say "America attacked Iraq and killed lots of people when we didn't have to". I am responsible to a smaller degree what my country does. I am also responsible to a smaller degree when my country does bad things for good reasons or bad things for the least bad reason. WW2 is full of us doing bad things for the least bad reason. We killed lots of civilians for what we thought was the least bad reason then and thankfully it seems to have stood the test of time. That still means we as a country and as a people bear accountability for that. Not all of it and not even the majority of it. But we do. We are accountable for our actions, as individuals and as a country. Using the "they made us do it" is the height of cowardice and leads to actions down the road that are best not done.
Ill end with this last question, who killed the civilians in Germany in WW2 from the American bombings? America or Germany? The answer of course is America and I don't need to say the American government for people to know that is what is meant.

[cliffside]

13. When I joined in 2004 discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was not allowed in GD, only in the IP forum ...

which most do not read.

It is healthy to have open discussions.

[writerJT]

20. It's the "Israel can do no wrong" position.

You’ll never get through.

[Eko]

22. Could be, or it just could be that we are having problems communicating.

They made a statement that I didn't understand at all but to them was obvious. It's entirely possible that I did the same. I always try to have patience with such conversations and not imply that they are idiots for not getting my point.

[uponit7771]

15. Like the US was with Germany and Japan? tia

[OilemFirchen]

18. No.

That was a war between the Ally and Axis powers. Their militaries, under the instruction of their respective governments, were those responsible to carry out destruction, injury and death. The non-combatant populations of the countries were the victims.

I think it's supposed to be that simple, right?

[uponit7771]

25. You asked...

"but Israel is responsible for the subsequent deaths and putative starvation?"

My answer is yes, like the US was after defeating Germany and Japan.

Except Israel is letting them innocent starve after defeating their military forces.

[EdmondDantes_]

16. Considering what's left of Hamas right now isn't capable of doing much, the cause of death and starvation today is Israe

Sure Hamas launched the October 7th attacks, and sure that was in response to years of Israel settlement expansion and that was in response to some other violent acts, etc etc, so on and so forth for a very long time. Who fucking cares who started it at this point? It's utterly irrelevant. The killing today is being done by Israel. All of it needs to stop. Hamas needs to stop, Israel needs to stop, Hezbollah needs to stop, etc. The proverbial two wrongs don't make a right. Where does the violence end?

Self-defense should be proportionate to the threat and stop once the threat is over. Today, Hamas isn't a threat. But keep this up and a whole new bunch of people are going to be radicalized. Yes Israel had the right and responsibility to respond to the October 7th attack with violence. What Israel is doing is revenge not self-defense.

If we take what seems to be your position, we could have continued bombing Afghanistan for how long? Or bombing Germany and Japan after they weren't in a position to stop us. Sure you can say that Hamas still has somewhere between 20-50 remaining hostages, and so Hamas hasn't fully surrendered, but that is not justification for intentional starvation of millions of people. There were some Japanese soldiers who didn't surrender after WWII. We didn't nuke their hideouts.

[cliffside]

10. According to the Israeli military they already control 75% of Gaza and in FEBRUARY 2024 had killed 40% of Hamas

fighters with many others seriously injured.

Hamas does not care about the majority of Palestinians and apparently neither does Netanyahu.

[uponit7771]

14. Not while crooked ass BB is in charge

[writerJT]

19. Gonna liberate the hell outta them, eh?

Sick

[marble falls]

28. It hasn't worked before, why will that work now? Pull the IDF back.

[cliffside]

23. Good news! Huckabee Says U.S.-Backed Aid Sites in Gaza Will 'Scale Up'

Reminder there used to be about 400 aid sites!

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/world/middleeast/huckabee-gaza-aid-ghf.html

"The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will soon operate 16 distribution sites instead of four, said Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel.

“The immediate plan is to scale up the number of sites up to 16 and begin to operate them as much as 24 hours a day,” he said in a Fox News interview, responding to questions about whether and how the United States planned to get more involved in aid distribution in Gaza.'


"Good news"

Netanyahu said the same thing in this interview.

Video of Rafah about 5:30 minutes in, still pictures do not capture the destruction.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6376663512112

[LexVegas]

24. The elected government of Gaza has not served its constituents well. nt

[Bobstandard]

26. Thats something you could say about our government

But it doesn’t let anyone involved off the hook.

[marble falls]

29. A lot of Israelis feel the same about Netanyahu ...

https://thehill.com/international/5445098-israel-protests-netanyahu-gaza/

Thousands in Israel protest Netanyahu Gaza plan, call for release of hostages

by Rachel Scully - 08/10/25 7:59 AM ET

[marble falls]

27. Easy enough to stop it. Pull the IDF back.