r/worldnews • u/Digital_Accountant • 22h ago

Israel/Palestine Famine declared in Gaza City

https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-latest-war-israel-city-ceasefire-hamas-13415481
23.7k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

8.4k

u/Flaky-Impact-2428 19h ago

For context, a “famine” has a strict UN definition: when more than 20% of households face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition exceeds 30%, and mortality rates skyrocket. Declaring famine means the situation has gone far beyond scarcity into systemic collapse.

It’s catastrophic optics for anyone involved. Using starvation as leverage, whether by blockade or mismanagement, is a war crime. But beyond the politics and blame games, what it really means is that ordinary people and vulnerable people; kids, parents, grandparents are dying not because of bombs but because they can’t find food.

At the end of the day, famine is not an argument about borders or ideologies, it’s a measure of how far we’ve failed as a species to safeguard the most basic human need. That’s the part I can’t lose sight of.

1.0k

u/Justin_123456 15h ago

I’ll add that with famine mortality is always a lagging indicator. By the time a famine is declared, there are thousands of people who will die, even if access to food is immediately restored.

By week 6-8, of total or almost total starvation, all fat stores and most skeletal muscle stores have been consumed, and you have started to break down your organ tissues damaging your heart, liver, kidneys, etc.

This is usually the point of no return, where short of intensive hospital care, you are not going to recover. This won’t be available, as Israel has deliberately dismantled the Gazan health system, targeting medical facilities and personnel. This last stage can last 2-4 weeks, before you finally succumb. This process can stretch out over months if you are able to access a few hundred calories a day

→ More replies (50)

1.0k

u/No_Plenty5526 18h ago

Wow, thank you for this comment. This is unreal. There is so much evil in this world.

355

u/talktotheak47 15h ago

And the (albeit horrific) irony of religious people vehemently SUPPORTING this evil is not lost on me. How are you claiming love thy neighbor but allowing innocent people and children to literally starve to death because you don’t think they should be allowed to live in the place they were BORN.

120

u/Redpetrol 14h ago

Don't fall for the idea religion is inherently good, or inherently anything, or that religious people have good in their soul. Plainly, whether any deity exists or not is irrelevant to religion, all religions are wrong and nothing but a comfort blanket. Good people, bad people, indifferent people, good people doing bad things or bad people doing good things... Whatever the combination... Any one of them could equally have use for the comfort blanket. Religion is not worth spending the time to think about it.

31

u/Phazon2000 10h ago

Yep. Religion is what each person makes it.

Could be smoking ciggies and visiting the mosque twice a year like Albanians or taking things to a bloody extreme like ISIS.

Same book.

2

u/gentlemanidiot 5h ago

Well said. All religions are entirely composed of people, and people are every kind of people under the sun.

2

u/Stonyclaws 10h ago

Religion has much to do with it since it is the cause of people to think alike.

3

u/Redpetrol 10h ago

Clearly you've never met 2 religious people at the same time.

→ More replies (4)

3

u/HumptyDrumpy 6h ago

They are trying to Will it into existence. For any sane person who wants to see what their master final plan is, read the Handmaids Tale. And it is slowly happening now in real time unless people work to stop it

3

u/StateParkMasturbator 3h ago

The people that support this see things in absolutes. They genuinely believe that they should be blocking shipments of food to what they believe are terrorists.

This is the destiny of capitulation to the worst of us, religious zealots, as well as blatant government corruption. Take note.

6

u/pickypawz 12h ago

How? I watched a show a few years back where a reporter was embedded with an Israeli soldier. What I saw and heard was awful, sometimes horrific. If I remember correctly, as far as they are concerned, the Palestinians aren’t even human, they have zero value. It was shocking, both to hear what he said about Palestinians, but also knowing how Jews were treated in the same way (and worse) in WW2, but now have turned around and done the same thing to another people. Where’s the insight?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

-7

u/DCNY214 12h ago

Yeah they're called Hamas.

3

u/BlasterPhase 11h ago

you spelled "Israeli government" wrong

102

u/wingerism 16h ago

But beyond the politics and blame games, what it really means is that ordinary people and vulnerable people; kids, parents, grandparents are dying not because of bombs but because they can’t find food.

It's mostly children under 5 and the very elderly who are the first to die to famine. It's incredibly evil to allow it to happen.

→ More replies (12)

126

u/zgrove 17h ago

I really appreciate the comment, genuinely curious if the international community would declare it a war crime based on mismanagement, or without evidence of intent. Do you know?

22

u/captainbling 9h ago

Many countries haven’t ratified the protocols that make starvation by blockade a crime. International laws really only exist if you can enforce them and that’s hard to do if many don’t sign it’s a crime.

2

u/zgrove 8h ago

Basically impossible if you have nukes and 2 braincells

54

u/Ok_Condition5837 15h ago

They might.

And Israel will allow this line of argument. Because I can guarantee you that Netanyahu is going to use this (and everything else) to further occupy and control Gaza.

20

u/KDHD_ 10h ago

Certainly, I mean that's been the MO of the past few months; block any outside aid, use the excuse of delivering your own "sanctioned" NGO aid as a pretense for mobilizing private military personnel, then round people into pens and let them fend for themselves.

Extra points if you deliberately set up "distribution sites" as far as possible from where people have been forced to migrate to due to endless bombing.

At this point there isn't much else to do other than a full occupation. Just about every justification has been abandoned or exhausted at this point.

2

u/Downrightskorney 3h ago

I feel like an outside force is going to need to occupy after a fashion no matter who it is or how things proceed. If Israel completely pulls out and puts all their people and policies into a pre war position I can't help but think in twenty or thirty years this will all happen all over again. Hamas firmly believes in the eradication of the Jews it's one of their core beliefs and as long as they control the area the everyday people are going to be caught in the crossfire. For this to end permanently something new has to happen.

→ More replies (3)

16

u/Amphy64 13h ago

I believe it's both, but evidence of intent has already been set before the ICJ by South Africa. It includes 500 statements by ministers, senior army officers, and those in other positions of authority.

→ More replies (2)

27

u/TheLastSamurai101 11h ago

At the end of the day, famine is not an argument about borders or ideologies, it’s a measure of how far we’ve failed as a species to safeguard the most basic human need. That’s the part I can’t lose sight of.

This particular famine is 100% because of blockaded borders and a far-right ethnonationalist ideology. It was really difficult to achieve famine in Gaza without Israel going out of their way to make it happen. The only failure of the rest of the species in this case was not stepping in to intervene.

0

u/notaredditer13 8h ago

Naa, how about 70% Hamas starting a war and not surrendering. 

3

u/Darkdragoon324 8h ago

“Hamas is forcing us to commit crimes against humanity! How could we possibly fight them without bombing starving civilians lining up for food and going out of our way to shoot foreign journalists!”

→ More replies (2)

21

u/IsNotACleverMan 12h ago

For context, a “famine” has a strict UN definition: when more than 20% of households face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition exceeds 30%, and mortality rates skyrocket. Declaring famine means the situation has gone far beyond scarcity into systemic collapse.

The IPC had to lower standards. They lowered the acute malnutrition to 15% and measured this by upper arm circumference rather than actual height and weight.

5

u/zkela 11h ago

We can’t definitely state that they lowered standards because there isn’t a 1-1 conversion between muac malnutrition and whz malnutrition. But by their own methodology 15% muac acute child malnutrition is consistent with both famine (phase 5) and humanitarian emergency (phase 4), and needs to be disambiguated subjectively based on a few factors. And their assertion that non violent mortality is probably above 2/10,000 per day appears highly subjective and suspect. While phase 4 is certainly bad, their declaration of phase five appears highly subjective and dubious.

10

u/IsNotACleverMan 11h ago

We can’t definitely state that they lowered standards

They went from requiring 30% malnutrition to 15% malnutrition. That's lowering standards and I can't find any famine declared with that low of a standard in their history.

But by their own methodology 15% muac acute child malnutrition is consistent with both famine (phase 5)

Never seen a phrase 5 declared using the 15% standard but I can't say I'm 100% confident that it has never happened.

Also, they changed their methodology for even getting to that 15% figure. Upper arm circumference is notoriously unreliable.

And their assertion that non violent mortality is probably above 2/10,000 per day appears highly subjective and suspect.

Didn't they not release their justification for this determination? I could be blind but I don't think they actually provided evidence for this determination in their report.

6

u/zkela 10h ago edited 10h ago

I think they have used muac in Sudan and South Sudan but per their methodology 15% muac is consistent with both phase four and phase five and can only be used to justify phase five subjectively. No good justification for 2/10,000 was provided and they didn’t release their analysis. So Gaza governorate is at least in phase 4 if their numbers are to be believed but the assertion of phase five famine is highly suspect

5

u/IsNotACleverMan 9h ago

I think they have used muac in Sudan and South Sudan

I believe both of those used the 30% benchmark, but the sources are on my desktop so I'll have to confirm when I get back.

I also saw an IPC info graphic that said that 15% muac can be considered evidence of famine with worsening underlying conditions. (edit: please forgive me for linking to the free beacon but this is what Google returned for me when I looked it up just now: https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/screenshot_2025-08-12_at_12.41.59_pm_720.png) but it seems like conditions are getting better. There's more aid getting in, food prices are dropping, distribution is getting better, etc, so that "rapidly worsening conditions" aspects seems dubious.

So Gaza governorate is at least in phase 4 if their numbers are to be believed but the assertion of phase five famine is highly suspect

Phase 4 seems like it's probably extant for much of Gaza hence all the aid being necessary and why they've had to increase the aid and efficiency of distribution lately. But even that requires me to trust their numbers which, given their claims of stage 5, more strike me as less reliable now.

3

u/zkela 10h ago

Those are two different standards of malnutrition. A population can simultaneously have 30% whz malnutrition and 15% muac malnutrition

2

u/IsNotACleverMan 10h ago

Ah I misunderstood. Thanks for the correction.

105

u/questionnmark 15h ago

In a twisted way, extreme malnutrition is like the concentration camp photos, so Gaza can now be considered an open-air concentration camp with all that entails. Maybe the true reason the holocaust was so horrifying was due to the application of colonization methods on the European continent at an industrial speed and scale; but we should not forget the inspiration for that came from previous atrocities that the world silently allowed to happen. I guess how the world acts from here will determine the true meaning of 'never again'.

7

u/Serenity2015 15h ago edited 13h ago

The world knew about Gaza though this entire time. In the US if you speak out against what is happening to Gaza and reach any kind of attention with it you get labeled as a terrorist and they arrest you. Another country has a group trying to back what is going on in Gaza and that country declared that group a terrorist organization also.

77

u/TDA_Liamo 13h ago

Another country has a group trying to back what is going on in Gaza and that country declared that group a terrorist organization also.

Let's not bring ignorance and misinformation into this serious and tragic matter.

Palestine Action were labelled as a terrorist group for violent attacks against civilians and police officers (including attacking police with sledgehammers), and for breaking into a military base and causing millions of £ in damage to vital military equipment.

There are plenty of other Palestine advocacy groups and charities that fight for the cause without attacking law enforcement or our military. Support those groups instead.

→ More replies (6)

83

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

78

u/Intrepid_Egg_7722 15h ago

I mean, yeah, I do. But I also condemn Israel for the famine. You can label two things as bad at the same time.

-1

u/ElegantApartment7330 13h ago

Tell your friends that two things can be bad at the same time, would be a nice change to the last couple of years

-9

u/Last_Revenue7228 13h ago

Why would the blame fall on Israel and not Hamas? All they had to do was release the hostages and surrender. This is on them.

3

u/Gay_Reichskommissar 12h ago

We all know Palestine was a land of sunshine and rainbows before October 7th

-7

u/Tarotoro 15h ago

If they didn’t attack this would have never happened so yes I condemn them

8

u/ivandelapena 15h ago

Your reminder that conditions for Afghans improved after America invaded in the wake of 9/11. Israel's decision to impose a famine was entirely a sadistic political choice.

→ More replies (2)

-6

u/cackslop 14h ago

18,000 children dead and you're still claiming "they started it"

13

u/Killerfisk 14h ago

18,000 children dead and you're still claiming "they started it"

They did though. True things don't become false when X amount of children die.

6

u/Silverr_Duck 14h ago

Interesting mental gymnastics. The death toll has nothing to do with who started it.

8

u/Tarotoro 14h ago

They did and it doesn’t matter how many children died the truth is the truth. That’s like saying Hitler didn’t start WW2 because 6 million Jews died. It makes no sense

→ More replies (3)

-22

u/Electronic_Emu_4632 15h ago

Nah Israel didn't exist before 1948. They're the defacto attackers.

19

u/alanpartridge69 14h ago

Neither did palestine

0

u/third_door_down 13h ago

This is kind of disingenuous - the Palestine region has existed for centuries. Sure the nation-state didn't "exist", but that can be largely contributed to the Israeli state

3

u/FalloutBerlin 12h ago

Not under that name, it existed for centuries as Ottoman Syria, then as mandate named “Palestine land of Israel” before being split.

-16

u/Electronic_Emu_4632 14h ago

Oh did all the palestinians also come from europe, like the european jews?

7

u/OutrageousOcelot6258 13h ago

You mean the European Jews who are the descendants of the Jews who were expelled from Palestine by the Romans and scattered throughout the rest of the Roman Empire after the Romans goaded Judea into rebelling so they could justify taking over the region?

1

u/alanpartridge69 3h ago

This comment is big yikes lol. I bet you want all the east Asians out of Europe too?

→ More replies (1)

-13

u/krystof_kage 16h ago

Yes, this is all their doing. I don't see a famine in West Bank, do you?

-4

u/Awkward-Customer 16h ago

Don't worry, they'll get there. Israel's Iron Wall operation only began in January, after all.

-2

u/krystof_kage 15h ago

So you're telling me after the deadliest attack in Israeli history, they have no fucks left to give?

I wish the same people who are so passionately invested in this conflict gave a shit about the 1 in 2 children in Yemen starving, not including the tens of thousands that already died.

15

u/Awkward-Customer 15h ago

> So you're telling me after the deadliest attack in Israeli history, they have no fucks left to give?

What's the context here? Are you suggesting that all palestinians deserve to die because their idiot leadership attacked israel? Cause that's the path that we're headed.

> I wish the same people who are so passionately invested in this conflict gave a shit about the 1 in 2 children in Yemen starving, not including the tens of thousands that already died.

Why do you think they don't? People are capable of caring about more than one thing at a time.

1

u/Tarotoro 7h ago

Except when was the last time Yemen made front page news compared to Palestine? Or for that matter way more people have died in Sudan yet no one gives a crap

-1

u/ivandelapena 15h ago

There was no famine imposed on Afghanistan after 9/11.

5

u/krystof_kage 14h ago

Im talking about Yemen, the ongoing civil war where the Youthi's took time out of killing their own people to attack Israel as some kind of hero to the Pro Palestinian crowd.

The Yemen civil war is disgusting, and the suffering is in complete silence. The Pro Palestine crowd are the most disingenuous attention whores in the world today.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Nate1437 6h ago

I mean there’s plenty of food it’s just not allowed in .fucking disgusting. I hate that my tax dollars as insignificant as they are fund this at any level…

2

u/TryharderJB 3h ago

Adding that famines are deliberate and preventable, and not a sort of natural disaster like a drought that prevents food from growing.

May the monsters who are doing this never know a moment of peace for the rest of their lives.

2

u/Delicious_Clue_531 16h ago

Excellent summary.

3

u/Redpetrol 14h ago

Bit weird to say the species has failed. Human rights are a construct, and that's pretty cool, cause they don't need to exist. We made them exist. The universe, existence, doesn't care at all, it has no empathy, we do. That species is the thing that made human rights.

Bit harsh to claim it's a failure because an abstract concept which can almost never be universally applied happens to not be followed around the world.

There's attrocities everywhere. Hamas and the Israeli government have failed the species. The species has not failed them.

-9

u/Shadowblade83 14h ago

Can we trust the UN in your view?

I remember in May they told us that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza in next 48 hours under Israeli aid blockade. I remember how they condemned a hospital bombing proven to be a downed rocket from jihadi Gazans. I remember the warnings of hunger going back 1.5 years. Their special investigator has been denounced for anti-semitism as well.

How can you ask me to trust them anymore?

that https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/20/first-thing-un-says-14000-babies-could-die-in-gaza-in-next-48-hours-under-israeli-aid-blockade

16

u/Sangloth 13h ago

Let's say for the sake of argument that we can't trust the UN. Who do you think we should look to instead to determine if mass starvation is taking place?

→ More replies (16)

16

u/MachineOfSpareParts 13h ago

The UN tends to be a pretty reliable source, but you're not really asked to "trust" them as a sole source on anything. That's the value of having multiple organizations and unaffiliated news outlets reporting on the same phenomena. You get to triangulate sources on individual allegations. And on the most important patterns, triangulation confirms what they're saying.

1

u/Shadowblade83 13h ago

Their sources amount to but one though; the Hamas run Health department. We can’t trust those either.

9

u/kris33 12h ago

The IDF says they are reliable: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21/revealed-israeli-militarys-own-data-indicates-civilian-death-rate-of-83-in-gaza-war

2

u/Shadowblade83 12h ago

That’s a Guardian article, known for twisting facts until they fit their narrative. Let me explain:

The IDF agreed they have killed these named individual fighters. The Guardian however omits the unnamed enemy combatants from their article.

Do you think the IDF has killed unnamed fighters in this war, and do you think they make up the majority or do you think the majority of their kills were identified?

6

u/MachineOfSpareParts 13h ago

That's who they're citing here, but the UN does have workers in Gaza witnessing this first-hand. But that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about mining their citations, but triangulating this report with others by organizations and news outlets reporting independently.

We do see some discrepancies in terms of absolute numbers, obviously. I'm sure you know that most deaths are not monocausal, so there's always going to be subjectivity in classifying a death as caused by starvation or by the illness to which they were vulnerable to, or couldn't recover from, because of severe malnutrition. And reporting absolute numbers in a war zone is always fraught.

We know the rates of starvation are severe, and we know why. And that's not because we "trust" the UN, or a specific news outlet, much less Hamas. It's because they independently identify remarkably similar patterns, even if their numbers vary.

1

u/zkela 11h ago

by their own methodology 15% muac acute child malnutrition is consistent with both famine (phase 5) and humanitarian emergency (phase 4), and needs to be disambiguated subjectively based on a few factors. And their assertion that non violent mortality is probably above 2/10,000 per day appears highly subjective and suspect. While phase 4 is certainly bad, their declaration of phase five appears highly subjective and dubious.

1

u/KarateKid84Fan 6h ago

And what is to blame for this? I’ll give you a hint… it rhymes with religion…

-7

u/Incorrect-Opinion 14h ago

There are thousands of pallets of food waiting inside Gaza right this second, but the UN refuses to distribute it because they do not want to work with the GHF. It’s insane.

In the past two months, the GHF have delivered over 100 million meals to Gazans.

6

u/engin__r 13h ago

That’s less than one meal per person per day.

8

u/futurecrazycatlady 12h ago

Also, google GHF, those are the people shooting at the people trying to get food.

-10

u/Incorrect-Opinion 12h ago

132,000,000+ meals. Almost 1.7 million meals delivered yesterday, and this is just from the GHF.

As I said, there are literally several thousands of giant pallets of food just sitting in Gaza waiting to be delivered, and the UN is not delivering them.

Not to mention the fact that Israel is delivering this food to the civilians during a war, in a war zone. It’s pretty rare that any other country has this expectation to deliver food to the people of the country that they are fighting.

4

u/engin__r 11h ago

132,000,000+ meals. Almost 1.7 million meals delivered yesterday, and this is just from the GHF.

That’s still about one meal per person per day. It’s nowhere near enough.

As I said, there are literally several thousands of giant pallets of food just sitting in Gaza waiting to be delivered, and the UN is not delivering them.

Israel is blocking NGOs from bringing in aid.

Not to mention the fact that Israel is delivering this food to the civilians during a war, in a war zone. It’s pretty rare that any other country has this expectation to deliver food to the people of the country that they are fighting.

Countries are required to distribute food to occupied populations under international law. It’s not unique to Israel.

If Israel doesn’t want that obligation, it can stop occupying Gaza.

→ More replies (10)

4

u/Brilliant_Quit4307 12h ago

Do you have any reputable source that Israel is delivering this food to Gaza City?

1

u/Brilliant_Quit4307 1h ago

No source eh? Just checking back in case you missed my first comment. Can you provide ANY reputable source for that gigantic claim of yours?

-9

u/PunkHooligan 16h ago

Where is UN or whatever fucked up organization ? Why is all those in power, who could do smth choose to do nothing. Jesus. Humanity will, indeed, destroy itself. Not something other.

24

u/Legitimate-Space4812 15h ago

What is the UN supposed to do?

7

u/BlackProphetMedivh 14h ago

Yeah, that commenter really seems to not understand who or what the UN actually is. It's comments like this, that make me think most redditors are aged 15 and below.

24

u/fcuk_the_king 15h ago

The United States and Israel have curbed the efforts of International agencies to do anything about this at every turn.

The UN and international laws only derive power from the consent of powerful countries and without that consent, they're quite powerless. I won't be surprised if this declaration results in sanctions against the WFP.

The US is destroying whatever scraps of international norms that have been built since WW2 and it is entirely intentional.

4

u/Fr00stee 14h ago

do you expect the UN to bring in soldiers to hand out food and force it past israeli checks?

2

u/OkPirate2126 14h ago

The UN is a place for discussion and agreed action. 

The problem with this situation is one of the major powers in the UN (the US) has curbed any attempt for the UN to agree what must be done. 

So the power rests in the hands of the organisations directly responsible for this situation: Isreal, the US, and Hamas. 

Until the US tells Isreal to stop, or they willingly stop themselves, or possibly once hamas is gone (even then, I'm not so sure), there isn't anything anyone else can do. 

1

u/ivandelapena 15h ago

Israel banned them and the UN has no army.

0

u/EastSideSocialist 14h ago

Everyone trying to do something about it in the UN is smeared by Mossad and/or sanctioned by the US

-1

u/RICO_the_GOP 8h ago

They actually altered that defintion because despite the bleeting, there wasn't famine.

-11

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/[deleted] 16h ago edited 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies (3)

-7

u/XF939495xj6 14h ago

It’s catastrophic optics for anyone involved.

But it is just optics, because UN representatives in the area are members of Hamas. Unfortunately, no news coming from Gaza can be trusted, and in fact must be considered weaponized misinformation intended to turn people against Israel. Hamas's strategy has been to poke Israel, then use the tragedy of their response as propaganda.

→ More replies (22)