If Hamas stopped using Palestinians as human shields and returned the rest of the hostages, Israel and Palestinians could go back to living life together peacefully.
My position remains:
Iâve cited so much evidence that disproves the human shield argument on the Gaza thread that I find to believe that you still hold it in good faith. It just seems like youâre in dogmatic denial. So tell me how does the human shield argument explain this?
Gaza: Israelâs Imposed Starvation Deadly for Children
Devastating Accounts from Doctors, Parents; Reports of âImminentâ Famine
Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition receive treatment at a healthcare center, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. Š 2024 Mohammed Salem/Reuters
(Beirut, April 9, 2024) â Children in Gaza have been dying from starvation-related complications since the Israeli government began using starvation as a weapon of war, a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. Doctors and families in Gaza described children, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration, and hospitals ill-equipped to treat them.
Concerned governments should impose targeted sanctions and suspend arms transfers to press the Israeli government to ensure access to humanitarian aid and basic services in Gaza, in accordance with Israelâs obligations under international law and the recent International Court of Justice order in South Africaâs genocide case.
âThe Israeli governmentâs use of starvation as a weapon of war has proven deadly for children in Gaza,â said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. âIsrael needs to end this war crime, stop this suffering, and allow humanitarian aid to reach all of Gaza unhindered.â
A United Nations-coordinated partnership of 15 international organizations and UN agencies investigating the hunger crisis in Gaza reported on March 18, 2024, that âall evidence points towards a major acceleration of death and malnutrition.â The partnership said that in northern Gaza, where 70 percent of the population is estimated to be experiencing catastrophic hunger, famine could occur anytime between mid-March and May.
Gazaâs Health Ministry reported as of April 1, that 32 people, including 28 children, had died of malnutrition and dehydration at hospitals in northern Gaza. Save the Children confirmed on April 2 the deaths from starvation and disease of 27 children. Earlier in March, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials foundâchildren dying of starvationâ in northern Gazaâs Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals. In southern Gaza, where aid is more accessible but still grossly inadequate, UN agencies in mid-February said that 5 percent of children under age 2 were found to be acutely malnourished.
Human Rights Watch in March interviewed a doctor in northern Gaza, a volunteer doctor who has since left Gaza, the parents of two infants who doctors said died of starvation-related complications in both mother and child, and the parents of four other children suffering from malnutrition and dehydration.
Human Rights Watch reviewed the death certificate for one of the children, and photos of two of the children in critical condition that showed signs of emaciation. All had been treated at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
Human Rights Watch health advisers also reviewed verifiedpictures and videos online of three other evidently emaciated children who died and four others in critical condition who also showed signs of emaciation.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who heads Kamal Adwan hospitalâs pediatrics unit, told Human Rights Watch on April 4 that 26 children had died after experiencing starvation-related complications in his hospital alone. He said that at least 16 of the children who died were under 5 months old, at least 10 were between 1 and 8 years old, and that a 73-year-old man suffering from malnutrition had also died.
Dr. Safiya said one of the infants died at just two days old after being born severely dehydrated, apparently exacerbated by his motherâs poor health: â[She] had no milk to give him.â
N. age 11, is being treated for malnutrition and severe dehydration at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza, March 25, 2024. Š 2024 Mousa Salem/Anadolu via Getty Images
Nour al-Huda, an 11-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis, was admitted to Kamal Adwan hospital on March 15. Doctors there told her mother that Nour was suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, and an infection in her lungs, and administered her oxygen and a saline solution. âNour al-Huda now weighs 18 kilograms [about 40 pounds],â her mother told Human Rights Watch. âI can see her chest bones sticking out.â
International humanitarian law prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that intentionally starving civilians by âdepriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies,â is a war crime.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, the Israeli government has deliberately blocked the delivery of aid, food, and fuel into Gaza, while impeding humanitarian assistance and depriving civilians of the means to survive. Israeli officials ordering or carrying out these actions are committing collective punishmentagainst the civilian population and the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, both of which are war crimes.
Israeli government actions that undermine the ability of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to carry out its recognized role in distributing aid in Gaza have exacerbated the effects of the restrictions.
A doctor who volunteered at the European hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza for two weeks in late January said that medical staff were forced to treat patients with limited medical supplies. He described the difficulty of treating malnutrition and dehydration, lacking essential items such as glucose, electrolytes, and feeding tubes. He said that one patientâs mother, desperate for solutions, resorted to crushing potatoes to create a makeshift liquid for tube feeding. Despite its nutritional inadequacy, the doctor said, âI ended up telling my other patients to find potatoes and do the same.â
On January 26, the International Court of Justice, in a case brought by South Africa, ordered provisional measures, including requiring Israel to âtake immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aidâ and other actions to comply with the 1948 Genocide Convention. On March 28, the court indicated that Israel had not complied with this order and imposed a more detailed provisional measure requiring the government to ensure the unimpeded provision of basic services and aid in full cooperation with the UN, while noting that âfamine is setting in.â
Governments should impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against officials and individuals responsible for the continued commission of the war crimes of collective punishment, deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid and using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.
Several countries have responded to the Israeli governmentâs unlawful restrictions on assistance by airdropping aid. The United States also pledged to build a temporary seaport in Gaza. However, aid groups and UN officials have said such efforts are inadequate to prevent a famine. Another attempt to deliver aid by sea was halted after an Israeli attack on aid workers on April 1.
On April 4, the Israeli cabinet agreed to several measures to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza, apparently following pressure from the US government.
âGovernments outraged by the Israeli government starving civilians in Gaza should not be looking for band-aid solutions to this humanitarian crisis,â Shakir said. âIsraelâs announcement that it will increase aid shows that outside pressure works. Israelâs allies like the US, UK, France, and Germany need to press for full-throttle aid delivery by immediately suspending their arms transfers.â
Starvation in Gaza
Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gazaâs then-2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and over 80 percent were reliant on humanitarian aid. Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including over the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, and the population registry. This leaves Gazaâs population, whom Israel has subjected to an unlawful closure for more than 16 years, almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to fuel, electricity, medicine, food, and other essential commodities.
Nonetheless, before October 7, large amounts of humanitarian assistance reached the population. âBefore this crisis, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population,â said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. âMalnutrition was a rare occurrence. Now, people are dying, and many more are sick.â
The WHO reported that the number of children under age 5 who are acutely malnourished has jumped from 0.8 percent before the hostilities in Gaza to between 12.4 and 16.5 percent in northern Gaza. Oxfam said on April 3 that since January, people in northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day, âless than a can of fava beans.â
According to a nutrition vulnerability analysis conducted in March by the Global Nutrition Cluster, a network of humanitarian organizations chaired by UNICEF, 90 percent of children ages 6-23 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women across Gaza faced âsevere food poverty,â eating two or fewer food groups each day.
Children with preexisting health conditions are particularly vulnerable to the devastating effects of malnutrition, which significantly weakens immunity. And starvation, even for survivors, leads to lasting harm, especially in children, causing stunted growth, cognitive issues, and developmental delays.
Gazaâs Health Ministry announced on March 8 that about 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffered from malnutrition, dehydration and inadequate health care. Poor nutrition during pregnancy harms both the baby and the mother, increasing the risk of miscarriages, fetal deaths, compromised immune system development, growth impacts, and maternal mortality.
Older people are also at particular risk of malnutrition, which increases mortality among those with acute or chronic illnesses. HelpAge International reported that even before October, 45 percent of older people in Gaza were going to bed hungry at least once a week, with 6 percent hungry every night.
The impact on Gazaâs population of the Israeli governmentâs use of starvation as a weapon of war is compounded by the near-total collapse of the healthcare system. Out of Gazaâs 36 hospitals, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only 10 are operational, none of them fully, both as a result of the Israeli militaryâs repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport, as well as the severe restrictions on the entry of fuel and other supplies.
Accounts from Gaza
On March 19, Andrea De Domenico, head of OCHA in the occupied Palestinian territory, visited Kamal Adwan hospital, where he saidabout 15 malnourished children arrive daily due to shortages in food, water, and proper sanitation. He described dire conditions at the hospital, noting damage to certain areas and its reliance on a single generator.
F., age 6, experiencing malnutrition, receives treatment after being evacuated from the northern Gaza Strip to the IMC field hospital in Rafah, Gaza, March 24, 2024. Š 2024 Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images
Among the cases that Human Rights Watch investigated:
- A man from Beit Lahia said his infant son, Abdelaziz, died just hours after his severely malnourished mother gave birth to him in Kamal Adwan hospital on February 24. He shared Abdelazizâs death certificate with Human Rights Watch, which said that Abdelaziz was born premature. His father said that the hospital staff hooked Abdelaziz up to a ventilator because he was having trouble breathing, but that the ventilator stopped working after the hospital ran out of the necessary fuel a few hours later. âAbdelaziz died immediately,â he said. He expressed concern for his wife, who had been surviving on legumes and canned food, emphasizing their ongoing struggle to access adequate nourishment.
- The father of newborn twin girls said that one of his babies, Joud, died at Kamal Adwan hospital on March 2 after suffering from malnutrition, eight days after she was born. He said that he struggled to feed his family prior to the girlsâ birth, but that they only had bread to eat, without meat or protein. He said that after the twinsâ birth, his wife could not produce milk to breastfeed the girls and that store-bought milk was scarce. He described Joudâs deteriorating condition, saying that her âlimbs became very cold, and she was breathing very slowly.â His mother-in-law accompanied Joud to the hospital, where she later passed away. The father expressed concern for the health of the surviving twin.
- Fadi, a 6-year-old boy from al-Nasser neighborhood in Gaza City, has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that causes damage to the lungs. Fadiâs mother said that because of the Israeli blockade, she struggled to obtain the necessary medication and provide adequate nourishment. By mid-January, Fadiâs health had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer walk, prompting his hospitalization. âFadi weighed 30 kilograms [about 66 pounds] before the war, now he is 12 [about 26 pounds],â she said. Fadi was evacuated from Kamal Adwan hospital on March 23 and was receiving treatment at a hospital in Cairo, a relative said on March 28.
- Wissam Hammad, the uncle of 5-year-old Muhammad, who has cerebral palsy and is lactose and gluten-intolerant and can only eat blended food, had great difficulties in securing food for him:
Most of his food should be fruit and vegetables, which is what I try to buy. But all I can find and afford are oranges. The problem is that he cannot chew, so we need to break down the food for him. Everything is very expensive.
- Dr. Ahmed Shahin, a pediatrician, said that before he could leave Gaza on November 16, Osman, his 14-year-old son with cerebral palsy, who uses a gastrostomy feeding tube, had lost seven kilograms (about 15 pounds) since the beginning of the hostilities because they lacked access to both the specific food he neededâsuch as vegetablesâand electricity to blend his food.
Obstacles to Aid Delivery
Ongoing Israeli bombardment and ground operations, lack of security assurances from Israel, widespread infrastructure damage, and communications disruptions make it difficult to distribute the little aid that does get into Gaza. Humanitarian organizations have reported that Israeli forces have attacked their aid convoys and workers. Israeli forces have also shot at and shelled people congregating to collect aid, killing and injuring hundreds.
An Israeli government spokesperson stated on March 18 that aid entering Gaza faced no limits apart from security concerns. Other officials have blamed the UN for distribution delays and accused Hamas of aid diversion or the Gaza police of failing to secure convoys. On March 29, the Israeli Defense Ministryâs body governing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, disputed the March 18 UN-supported humanitarian report warning of an imminent famine, and said that it âdoes not reflect the full situation.â COGAT denied that the Israeli government was purposely starving Gazaâs civilian population. Human Rights Watch wrote to COGAT on April 2 seeking comment on our findings, but did not receive a response as of the time of publication.
However, OCHA reported on April 8 that only one of four food aid missions that require coordination in Gaza were facilitated by Israeli authorities in March. Only nine World Food Programme aid shipments have made it to the north since January 1, the most recent of which was 18 truckloads on March 17. The World Food Programme said at least 300 trucks are needed every day for the north alone.
The United States has resorted to airdropping food into Gaza andplans to build a floating pier at sea to deliver aid, a proposal criticized by 26 nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, as ârisky, expensive, and ineffective.â UN Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick has stressed that road transport is the only viable solution for increasing aid flow.
The restrictions on aid delivery make accessing food for people requiring a specific diet particularly difficult. Several representatives of humanitarian organizations said that they have been unable to provide food for children on special diets or to reach them. A Palestine Childrenâs Relief Fund staff member said they could only provide baby formula and could not respond to the needs of children with specific diet requirements. Medical Aid for Palestine said the special food items they had in storage ran out quickly, and since then, they have been unable to find and provide those in need with specialized food items:
Assistance is barely coming in: a quarter of the population is at risk of famine. Under these circumstances, people with disabilities and [people in vulnerable situations] suffer the most. When you speak about food, itâs hard to support people who need a specific diet and medical assistance.
Following an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza on April 1, 2024, which hit three marked vehicles from the international food organization World Central Kitchen and killed seven aid workers from several countries, Cyprus announced that ships carrying around 240 tons of aid for Gaza would turn back. World Central Kitchen, Project Hope, and ANERA, all providers of food aid, suspended their Gaza operations in light of the attack, and the United Arab Emirates paused its involvement in a maritime aid corridor.
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Region / Country
Topic
- Children and Armed Conflict
- Crisis and Conflict
- Attacks on Health
- Internally Displaced People
- Women and Armed Conflict
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Israeli Authoritiesâ Cutting of Water Leading to Public Health Crisis in Gaza
REPORTS
- January 28, 2025 Report
âFive Babies in One Incubatorâ
Violations of Pregnant Womenâs Rights Amid Israelâs Assault on Gaza
- November 14, 2024 Report
âHopeless, Starving, and Besiegedâ
Israelâs Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza
I call it a war crime. Biden should have stopped aiding and abetting it and so should Trump.
Iâm not arguing from authority, Iâm arguing that you need evidence to justify your beliefs. The unreliability of my evidence is not evidence for your beliefs; you have presented no evidence for your beliefs.
If your position was agnosticism about the state of the economy or the impact of the parties on it, arguing that my sources are unreliable would get you there. But where you make positive claims, not just that we donât know what the truth is but that the truth is something else, you need to present evidence of that.
My hypothesis is that your evidence is something like âsocial media vibesâ or âpundit/politician says soâ. And I think youâre not saying that thatâs your evidence because you already know that that is more obviously unreliable than the evidence Iâm presenting. But you have no other evidence, so youâre avoiding providing any evidence, and trying to keep the discussion on the reliability of my evidence instead.
This isnât hard: you say my source is unreliable, so say what different evidence you have that 1) is more reliable, and 2) supports your worldview.
I replied back then: Genocide in Gaza? - #175 by Ichthus77
and here: Genocide in Gaza? - #183 by Ichthus77
Israel is starving thousands of innocent children. This Is a clear violation of international law. Withdrawal of American support is justified.
Israel isnât starving anybody. Israel is defending herself against people who attacked her on October 7, have a history of attacking, and are responsible for all the starvation and anything else bad that happens as a result. Israel has done what they could do to minimize those bad things. You want war to be pretty? End Hamas quicker. Put Iran in check quicker. Drawing it out is extending the ugliness.
Hamas doesnât want to return the hostages and live peacefully. The hostages are their only bargaining chip, and they donât want peaceful coexistence. They want to increase the ugliness and pin it all on Israel and take zero responsibility, while they hide amongst the children they starve by sabotaging and hoarding the aid, and building war tunnels under supposedly safe locations.
Your argument is simply ridiculous. Youâre in effect saying that Israel doesnât have agency and giving all accountability to Hamas. Israel can do no wrong in your eyes because God is on their side. As if starving innocent civilians and blocking aid to them is not a choice. Your Christian Zionist ideology has blinded you. I submit that your position exhibits dangerous fanaticism.
It is Hamas doing that, and Israel doing what she can do to minimize it.
You are the one calling Israelâs self-defense ethnic cleansing, equating the monsters of October 7 with an entire ethnicity (they hide amongst). Of course youâre going to claim I am the one who is the fanatic.
That is simply . You are impervious to reason.
I am impervious to rationalization. Thereâs a difference.
Unlike you, I have no reason to rationalize one way or another in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. I am simply a non-partisan distant observer in a remote conflict between two parties who are committing violent crimes against each other. You, because you subscribe to Christian Zionist ideology, believe that God is on Israelâs side and therefore Israel can do no wrong. So your rationalization is motivated and you stick to it regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Criticizing of Jewish Israelis/Zionism is antisemitic where one can lose their American citizenship, job, and overall financial livelihood doing so eventually ending up in an El Salvador prison somewhere or worse. Everyone knows Jews are Godâs special chosen people where they can do no wrong and where throughout world history only Jews have the status of being genocided, Jews are incapable of genocide, murder, or wrong doing where if things happen to other people in terms of their total collective destruction itâs merely Godâs will and divine wrath in action which always favors Jews. Jews are great upright moral people being good stewards of society which is why theyâre incapable of human corruption, deception, or any kind of wrongdoing. One might say Jews are human perfection personified in living where the entire world should emulate them completely.
I trust our God Emperor Donald Trump who is the new Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar who has Benjamin Netanyahoo on speed dial in constant communications through his gifted gold pager.
Be careful what you say or I might have to report you to the ADL who then will collect you with Homeland Security agents on your doorstep under the new antisemitism domestic terrorism doctrine. We must keep America antisemitism free and if youâre not with the Jews, Israelis, or Zionism youâre a terrorist sympathizer for Hamas and probably also a Nazi. Only commies sympathize with the inhabitants of the Middle East as well, you donât want to be a communist, do you?
Under the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip by Donald Trump it is going to become a major international tourist attraction in the Middle East with beachfront property overlooking coastal oil wells to which Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo will be in their swim trunks sun bathing on the beach drinking peanut calatas while Elon Musk also present will be wearing a Hawaiian shirt eating hummus, Palestinians should be grateful for the future that is being offered to them.
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I believe that the kingdom is not founded in this world, is omnicultural, that humans are fallible, and that Netanyahu has the responsibility to protect Israel and end Hamasâan enemy that is both foreign and domestic, a proxy for Iran. if Hamas/Iran stopped attacking Israel, everyone would be living together in peace. Hamas/Iran does not want coexistence. They should not mistake a lack of provocation on Israelâs part as weakness.
If Israel were to lose her âmindâ and become the aggressor rather than the defender, would God do to her as he has done in the past and allow her to fall into exile? How do you know whether that is what is happening to her right now or whether Hamas and Iran keep going back on their word because God is going to make an example out of them like he did with Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar? October 7. Stuff like this:
From the BBC- Canada unites to elect liberal PM to stand up to Trumpâs threats to their sovereignty.
Mark Carney and the Liberal Party have claimed a remarkable victory in the Canadian election â and it appears to have come with a big assist from Donald Trump.
The US presidentâs constant badgering of Americaâs northern neighbour and taunts about making it the 51st US state since his return to office in January coincided with a dramatic reversal in fortune for the centre-left party.
Carney has been almost singularly focused on his neighbour, and this was reflected in his victory speech. After warning that the US wanted Canadaâs land and resources, Carney declared: âPresident Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.â
Until Trumpâs return to power, Pierre Poilievreâs Conservative Party had held what looked like high and insurmountable ground in voter preference polls amidst general dissatisfaction with the state of the Canadian economy and almost a decade of Liberal government under then leader Justin Trudeau.
I already responded. I was not equating what Israel is doing with anything or anyone. You appear to be operating in a closed system of your own beliefs and assumptions. You have rejected my arguments out of hand. It seems only you can answer the questions you pose to yourself in the life-world you inhabit.
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Biden may have operated â..within the bounds of the US Constitutionâ, but he didnât operate within the bounds of moral or ethical decency.
.
Are you saying that you think that the Biden presidency was a normal one?
Are you going to tell me that he did nothing morally or ethically wrong?.
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Again Surya, please be specific and tell me what youâre referring to. Biden wasnât convicted of a felony by a jury of his peers like Trump was. And I think he is probably guilty of several more including, most seriously, trying to steal a legitimate election which he lost. You and I obviously see things quite differently. Itâs an interesting phenomena how thatâs possible. And of course, itâs quite common in these times. Dialogue frequently breaks down when that happens with people accusing one another of dishonesty and other stuff. But, I donât think that is what is going on, So, if we can keep our cool, perhaps we can explore how we got where we are.
My position is based on long held convictions and values. I didnât have to work at disliking Trump. To me he has always been a greedy bully a show off, a misogynist, a racist and a bigot. Once I found out how he scammed people with his phony university I couldnât understand how ordinary American people could enthusiastically vote for him. The Republicans had often promoted candidates on the premise that they were successful businessmen. But, I didnât think they would go for one who was clearly out to rip people off. Man was I wrong.
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Oh, so you want me to eat my answers from your hand, or Iâm wrong? May the bird of Paradise crap in your ear.
drinks water to world peace
So then, what do you think of Trumpâs first 100 days in office?