We are about to witness the most intense famine since World War II in Gaza

[babylonsister]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/we-are-about-to-witness-the-most-intense-famine-since-world-war-ii-in-gaza

We are about to witness the most intense famine since World War II in Gaza
Alex de Waal
Gaza’s health crisis has its own dreadful momentum. Even if the shooting ends today and the aid trucks begin to roll, the dying will carry on for some time
Thu 21 Mar 2024 04.13 EDT
Last modified on Thu 21 Mar 2024 08.24 EDT


Gaza is already the most intense starvation catastrophe of recent decades. The death toll from hunger and disease may soon surpass the body count from bombs and bullets.

snip//

Israel has had ample warning of what will happen if it continues its campaign of destroying everything necessary to sustain life. The IPC’s Famine Review Committee report on December 21 authoritatively warned of starvation if it did not cease destruction and failed to allow humanitarian aid at scale. Israel’s own judge nominated to sit at the International Court of Justice, Aharon Barak, voted with the court’s majority in favour of ‘immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.’

Israel has not changed course. The supplies entering Gaza are woefully short of the minimum calories Israel specified before the war. American airdrops of supplies and emergency port are a pitiful pretence of a substitute.

Famine is unfolding in Gaza today. We should not have to wait until we count the graves of children to speak its name.

Alex de Waal is a writer on humanitarian issues, conflict and peace, and an expert on the Horn of Africa. He is executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in Massachusetts

[2naSalit]

1. Famine...

Part of bibi's plan to annihilate the Palestinians once and for all.

Bibi's final solution, with the help of scum like jarvanka.

[Iggo]

2. See what you made me do?

[edhopper]

3. This is horrible

and Israel must change course.

That said, Sudan has been far worse than what we see here. Millions starves. The hyperbole isn't needed.

[former9thward]

4. I guess the series of African famines where millions have died doesn't count.

The history of famine in Africa since World War II

1958 – Famine in Tigray claimed the lives of approximately 100,000 people.

1968-1972 – The Sahel drought devastated communities across Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, with an estimated 1 million deaths.

1972-1973 – Intense droughts led to famine in Ethiopia.

1982-1986 – Famine in Mozambique and Sudan arose as a result of civil war.

1983-1985 – Famine in Ethiopia led to the deaths of up to 1.2 million people and prompted widespread international media coverage

1991-1992 – Drought and civil war contributed to famine in Somalia.

1998-2004 – War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo led to starvation and disease-related deaths of more than 2.7 million people.

2010/11 – Drought and conflict combined to cause famine in Somalia, with more than a quarter of a million deaths.

2016 - present – Civil war in Yemen have led to mass hunger across the country.

2021 - present – The war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple conflicts across the African continent, locust plagues and a recurrent drought have lefts more than 81.6 million people across eastern Africa at risk of food insecurity.

https://www.caritas.org.au/global-issues/famine-in-africa-the-causes-history-and-how-you-can-help/

[Lonestarblue]

5. Israel can easily prevent the famine in Gaza. They just refuse to do so.

The famines across Africa have to do with many bad actors and the interference of foreign powers. No one country or leader can stop it, but Netanyahu can end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians today.

[former9thward]

7. Did you read the headline of the OP?

Apparently not. It says "We are about to witness the most intense famine since WW II in Gaza" How can that be defended unless you are going to ignore the continent of Africa?

[Kaleva]

8. That doesn't support the headline of the OP

[babylonsister]

16. Seems you didn't read the article?

Other bigger famines are addressed.

A rule of thumb is that “catastrophe” or “famine” conditions mean a daily death rate from from hunger or disease of two people out of 10,000. About half are children under five years old. The arithmetic is simple. For a population of 1 million, that is 200 deaths per day, 6,000 per month.

By way of comparison, the worst famine on the IPC record books struck Somalia in 2011, through a combination of war, drought and a shutoff in aid. At its nadir, 490,000 people were in “catastrophe” conditions with a larger number in “emergency” conditions. An estimated 258,000 people perished over 18 months.

The only other occasion when IPC data showed famine was in South Sudan in 2017. Civil war plunged half the country’s 10 million people into a food emergency, with 90,000 suffering famine. About 1,500 people starved to death in the two districts devastated by famine, but four years of wider food emergency claimed about 190,000 lives.

snip//

Famine was never declared for Yemen. But food emergency affecting millions over years of war caused as many as 250,000 starvation deaths. In the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the story is similar.

We are about to witness most intense famine since the second world war. It won’t be the biggest, because starvation is confined to the 2.2 million residents of the Gaza Strip.

[former9thward]

22. They were not addressed, they were ignored.

As my post above shows.

[Mosby]

19. Hamas can release the hostages, they just refuse to do so.

If they did that they could end the war they started with Israel.

Do you have any proof that Israel is deliberately trying to starve people?

[DemocraticPatriot]

34. Israeli civilians blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza seems like proof enough...

and that can't even be blamed upon their politicians!

[Kaleva]

10. An estimated 30 million died in China of famine

during Mao's Great Leap Forward.

[former9thward]

15. No question.

That has been kept pretty silent because normal communication with China was cut off from the West during that period. More information continues to come out as time goes on.

[Kaleva]

20. Africa and Asia are often ignored by the West.

I suspect overt or latent racism has something to do with it.

[TwilightZone]

13. The ignorance of history, including quite recent history, continues to be profound.

It may be unintentional, but I fear that it's not.

[sarisataka]

21. Those don't count

Because they were "different"

[BannonsLiver]

24. It's not the cause du jour for some folks, that is for sure.

[enid602]

26. Drought

I don’t recall there being much talk of drought in Gaza. This is a man-made famine.

[maxsolomon]

30. The Guardian is saying its the largest "intense famine", versus "non-intense famines".

do they actually define "intense famine"? I looked and missed it.

I suppose it means a large group of people go into famine en masse in a short period of time?

[malaise]

6. Plain evil

and many are complicit

[lindysalsagal]

9. Proof that religion kills.

As long as we put our stone-age fairy tales and tribal territorial blood-thirst ahead of our own needs, this will continue.

Same with gunz.

[Kaleva]

11. Stalin's and Mao's killing of millions through starvation

had nothing to do with religion

[lindysalsagal]

12. Because dictators kill, too, But they fool more people when they wrap themselves in "religion."

[Kaleva]

18. Which proves people kill people. Religion or not

Genghis Khan killed an estimated 40 million.

[lindysalsagal]

23. If you don't think Gaza is about religion, they there's no way you'll understand these issues.

[Kaleva]

31. Are you saying if the Israelites were atheists, there'd be peace in the region?

That this is just a fight between two different religions and has nothing to do do with land?

[lindysalsagal]

35. Each religion is willing to kill for the land because they believe

That's what their religion demands. It's ancient history and makes no sense to Americans. But without religion they might be able to live peacefully.

[Elessar Zappa]

14. Aid must be allowed to flow freely.

[OMGWTF]

17. Jerod Kushner just wants to "clean out" Gaza and build waterfront condos.

He say that yesterday.

[maxsolomon]

28. he said something that's been construed that way.

despite being an idiot, that's not what he said.

he proposed non-combatant Gazans be temporarily relocated to the Negev desert so Hamas can be fully defeated. he was talking out his ass.

[EX500rider]

25. More then the entire population of Gaza starved to death in N Korea 1994-1998

Estimates up to 3.5 million

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine#

[mike_c]

27. and it's deliberate

Tactical starvation of civilian populations is a crime against humanity.

[maxsolomon]

29. Since Hamas is refusing a ceasefire agreement without it being permanent

for over a month now, are they the ones starving their fellow Gazans "tactically"?

[David__77]

32. That is a result of Israel's military strategy to make civilian life impossible.

[leftstreet]

33. Ethnic cleansing by any means necessary n/t