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From Alex DeWaal at the World Peace Foundation at Tufts Univeristy Gaza’s Famine Warning in Perspective This blog post puts the famine warning in Gaza in perspective. It refers to two standard metrics for identifying famine and other degrees of food crisis. It outlines how starvation can be a war crime and a famine crime. https://www.savethechildren.net/news/deaths-starvation-and-disease-may-top-deaths-bombs-families-squeezed-deadly-safe-zones-two The article notes that it's not necessary for famine to be a war crime only if the infliction of it is intentional. If a nations shows reckless disregard for the consequences of its actions that result in famine, that can also constitute a war crime.

Once you posted those unsupported claims about the WPF you pretty much opened up your stance to criticism. That reality has overwhelmingly established how baseless they were I guess leaves you with no other recourse than not to address this issue.

Another eye-witness report. This one from Save the Children dated Dec 9th. "The repeated failure of the international community to act signifies a death knell to children. Israel is squeezing Palestinian children and families into ‘death zones’ dubbed as ‘safe zones.’ I’ve seen children and families roaming the streets of what hasn’t been flattened in Gaza, with no food, nowhere to go, and nothing to survive on. Even the internationally-funded humanitarian aid response – Gaza’s last lifeline - has been choked by Israeli-imposed restrictions." https://www.savethechildren.net/news/deaths-starvation-and-disease-may-top-deaths-bombs-families-squeezed-deadly-safe-zones-two

Maybe it hasn't gained much traction with you and your fellow travelers. But it has clearly gained traction with people like Anthony Blinken. Anthony Blimken said the food situation in Gaza was deteriorating. And he gave that speech from the WorldWfood Program warehouse. That's the same organization whose report you attempted to undermine with unsupported speculation about how they reach their decisions. Are you so naive to believe that delivering the message from the WFP warehouse out of all possible venues wasn't Bliken'sway of making a point? You think the US doesn't have its own independent intelligence sources to ascertain what's going on in Gaza? You think the issue of mass starvation has no bearing on the issue of genocide?

That's exactly the point. You weren't commenting on the content. The question is why and the answer is obvious. Your efforts to undermine the factuality of reports about actual ongoing starvation in Gaza haven't gone unnoticed. You are the party who claimed it was nitpicking to cite the difference between reports predicting starvation and reports of actual ongoing starvation. Using words like "nitpicking" is your usual recourse when you are cornered and have no salient response. As regards to starvation situation in Gaza, ithat tiredtactic establishes that you don't have much use for reality.

And you still have no answer for why Blinken described the food situation as "deteriorating" or why that contradicts what you wrote. You've got nothing. Except some lovely photos of a food market.

More evasion from you. The fact is that the reports from Haaretz about the food situation in Gaza jibes with other eyewitness reports. And your attempt to cast doubt on the report from the World Food Programme by offering speculative comments about possible machinations behind the report have been belied. Ya think Blinken chose to make his comments at WFP warehouse about the deteriorating food situation in Gaza despite their report?

When you write something, do you actually read it? Here's what you wrote: How do you reconcile this with "deteriorating"? "Bottom line, the first section of the report is already out of date since the new border crossing opened and more aid started to enter. So pointless debating further." How do you reconcile this with "deteriorating"?

You should definitely share this information with Anthony Blinken about the current conditions with Anthony Bliniken. Clearly, he needs an update. “We are intensely focused on the very difficult and indeed deteriorating food situation for men, women, and children in Gaza, and it’s something we’re working on 24/7,” Blinken said. https://www.timesofisrael.com/blinken-warns-against-gazans-displacement-says-war-may-metastasize-to-wider-region/' The only small and niggling problem with this is that his comment is dated January, 7, 2024. Can you share with us what your take on the meaning of "deteriorating" is?

Whatever smart alec intro you may be alleging, the fact is that you clearly didn't read that article in its entirety.. But what's more important, you didn't have a clue about the World /Food Programme's functions in Israel. You might want to educate yourself about how much effort and care goes into the creation of its reports: https://archive.ph/iRA27 https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/gaza-is-starving And on the grfowing list of facts you ignore is the subsequent survey by Unicef of the level of hunger in Gaza among nursing mothers and children. And, to top it off, you complete just ignore Blinken's characterization of the situation in Gaza. Apart from these quibbles, your post was spot on.

If his article was alone in depicting what life is like for starving Palestinians in Gaza, you'd have a better point.

Is Anthony Blinken also an employee of Haaretz? I think I've come up with a suitable adjective for the comments of those who deny the fact of ongoing starvation in Gaza: Trumpworthy.

Wow! So much ignorance packed into so little space. While the article does open with a bit of reporting about the UN food program, the heart of it is what it's like for Palestinians to cope with what life is like when you're faced with starvation: "Four Gazans spoke with Haaretz and explained how hunger was affecting their lives – from secondary consequences to the daily struggle to get some food, as little as it may be. One comment came up repeatedly in conversations with them and reflects the feeling of many in Gaza: If death doesn't come in an airstrike, they say, hunger will bring it." https://archive.ph/8e1X8#selection-801.0-803.71 There have been similar articles elsewhere including those coming from the Wall Street Journal. You got any articles written by eyewitnesses debunking the claims of starvation? There's a fella there's an off chance you may have heard of. HIs name is Anthony Blinken. He's the U.S. Secretary of State. “We are intensely focused on the very difficult and indeed deteriorating food situation for men, women, and children in Gaza, and it’s something we’re working on 24/7,” Blinken said. https://www.timesofisrael.com/blinken-warns-against-gazans-displacement-says-war-may-metastasize-to-wider-region/ Ya think the US hasn't got access to information about what's going on in Gaza? That it's being suckered by the media? By the way, he made that comment while visiting a food warehouse in Jordan. Ya know who that food warehouse belongs to? The World Food Programme. The organization you claim "went to Gaza last month."

Intensifying conflict, malnutrition and disease in the Gaza Strip creates a deadly cycle that threatens over 1.1 million children Cases of diarrhea in children up 50 per cent in just one week, with 90 per cent of children under two now subject to ‘severe food poverty’ Since the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned of the risk of famine in the Gaza Strip in late December, UNICEF has found that an increasing number of children are not getting their basic nutrition needs met. About 90 per cent of children under two years of age are consuming two or fewer food groups, according to a UNICEF survey conducted on December 26. This is up from 80 per cent of children compared to the same survey conducted two weeks earlier. Most families said their children are only getting grains – including bread – or milk, meeting the definition of “severe food poverty”. Dietary diversity for pregnant and breastfeeding women is also severely compromised: 25 per cent only consumed one food type the day before, and almost 65 per cent only two. https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/press-releases/intensifying-conflict-malnutrition-and-disease-gaza-strip-creates-deadly-cycle I'm embarrassed to admit it but occasionally, I find myself doubting that, as some aver, this is really about competition and competing agendas among various factions in the international aid sector. and that there's not much in the way of actual evidence that Palestinians actually are suffering from a severe lack of food. When I feel these doubts, I reassure myself by contemplating those lovely photos from COGAT that show a market brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Here's an article from the anti-zionist anti-semites at Haaretz. Much Harder for Children': Severe Hunger Is Spreading in Gaza. Four Voices From a Human Catastrophe The impossible reality of Gaza: Mothers who are too malnourished to breastfeed, searches for food under the threat of bombings and aid organizations collapsing under the strain https://archive.ph/8e1X8#selection-321.1-325.176

Here's an eye-witness report from "Professor Nick Maynard, a senior surgeon from Oxford University Hospital and the EMT’s clinical lead..." “We are seeing children and adults in the hospital with serious malnutrition. At the first hint of any infection these patients lose weight rapidly and look ever more profoundly malnourished.” https://www.map.org.uk/news/archive/post/1546--medical-aid-for-palestinians-and-international-rescue-committee-emergency-medical-team-report-serious-malnutrition-and-harrowing-injuries-in-gaza-hospital I do have a question that I wish I could ask Professor Maynard. Here it is: Who you gonna believe, COGAT or your lying eyes?

The same excerpt from this article his been tried on before. You might try reading in its entirety the quote this article came from. "These accounts of the Oct. 2 meeting have been disputed by senior U.S. officials and others familiar with intelligence surrounding the attacks. Several U.S. officials said Washington has “compelling” intelligence indicating that Iranian leaders were surprised by the Hamas assault. “The information that we have does not show a direct connection to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 as it relates to Iran. Again, that’s something that we’ll continue to look closely at,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said last week." https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fighters-trained-in-iran-before-oct-7-attacks-e2a8dbb9 Subsequent to this article... "The Israeli military has said there is no concrete evidence of Iranian involvement in the Hamas attack from Gaza, after denials issued by the Iranian foreign ministry. “Iran is a major player but we can’t yet say if it was involved in the planning or training,” said R Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/09/no-evidence-yet-of-iran-link-to-hamas-attack-says-israeli-military#:~:text=The Israeli military has said,by the Iranian foreign ministry.

IDF conclusion: The investigation concluded that the soldiers acted rightly to the best of their understanding and that "there was no malice in the event". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-29/thousands-move-fresh-exodus-central-gaza-israeli-advances/103271274 So, on the one hand, the soldiers violate the rules, but on the other hand they "acted rightly to the best of their understanding"? The snipers who saw 3 men naked from the waist up (in order to show they weren't wearing explosive vests) and waving a white flag acted rightly according to the best of their understanding? So the rules exist but when they're violated it's not a violation? It is to laugh.

I know you've appointed yourself as forum referee. Now you've appointed yourself the forum spokesman, too? The fact that you engage in this kind of denialsm instead of addressing the facts, shows how little you've got. We have eyewitness reporst from the Wall Street Journal, one of the best and most accurate media sources there is, and more importantly from the World Food Programme. The report from the World Food Programme dated Dec 21 is the first time they've said that there is actual ongoing starvation. As the New Yorker article delineated, the World Food Programme goes through a lot of procedures to make sure that the information is accurate. All you've got to offer in rebuttal of that is unsourced blather about the nature of such organizations.

Implicit in your assumptions is that efficiency as a concept in physics is the same efficiency as a concept in economics. Just because a process requires adding the energy that's going to be drawn on letter, that doesn't mean that it's economically inefficient and uncompetitive. It's how much it costs to create that energy. Economists reckon that at a cost of about $2 oer kilo, hydrogen would be competitive against natural gas. At least as far as onsite usage goes. The cost of creating hydrogen is dropping fast but it's not there yet. And onsite demand would be huge. Lots of industrial processes require high heat. As for batteries, the same reckoning of costs applies. Already, solar and wind are driving coal powered plants out of business. Gas-powered peaker plants, which charge high rates and are only fired up when baseline power supply is inadequate, are now regularly being outcompeted by batteries. And new kinds of batteries , such as those that rely on iron oxide (rust), are now in the beginning stages of commercial production and can offer energy at a much cheaper price than gas peaker plants can.

Is that all you've got? Thanks for the reflexive nonsense. If you believe that the difference between predictions and reality is a matter of "nitpicking", then have I got some stock picks for you.

Since you have decided to harp on it. allow me to join you. My comment was about actual starvation. No reports I or apparently you could find, at least not from credible sources, until the World Food Program report dates Dec 21.

Just to be clear: those last 2 links of your were about predictions. My comment was about actual starvation being reported on.

As for your statement about reports predicting the imminent exhaustion of food supplies about to be exhausted. That's about predictions. Do you understand the difference betweenreports about predictions and reports about actual conditions? It looks like you don't. Out of the 3 links you subsequently offered in a later post, 2 link to predictions. Only one of those links leads to a report on actual starvation. And my comment was about reports of actual starvation. Actual starvation. And the World Food Program report you linked is one I already cited. It's dated Dec 21.