Malnourished starving children in Gaza

[babyproblems]

The photos that appeared this morning on my news updates of mothers holding their children, dying of starvation and extreme malnutrition in Gaza have absolutely broken my heart. I am not particularly news focused, of course I’ve followed it all but this morning it has stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away. As a mother of a 3yo DS who is sleeping peacefully in his bedroom, whilst we have a fridge full of food downstairs and a life of peace, I feel so sorry that those poor mothers and children are living this hell so undeserved and also so so lucky we have the peace we do…
I don’t really know what the point of my post is; I suppose I’m screaming When Will This End inside and want to tell everyone to not take the freedom and peace we have for granted; use your right to vote and use your privilege to make informed choices that steer the world away from conflict towards peace…

Sending a handhold to all the mothers’ whose lives are not being lived in peace and whose children are suffering 🕊️💔

I agree with the above. I can't believe how low some of the posters on Mumsnet will sink, to justify what is being done to these poor innocent children.

Hamas are playing the world with the lives of their own and Israel's women, and children. They seem to be a death cult. They know exactly what they are doing in the media. When they returned the Bibas family in pieces after straggling them...there was no deep condemnation. How tight is their grip on the media narrative. It's like big brother. Hamas says and many in the world listens. Free Gaza from Hamas. Free Gazans from Hamas. Listen to the voices of Gazan people NOT Hamas. Read up on how much aid is going into Gaza and then ask....who is taking it? Perhaps the fat terrorists?

It's right to have a healthy scepticism. The Reuters article - once you move past the headline - also says the basis of the USAID report's claims are in doubt.
Likewise the CNN article touches on the complexities involved. There are definitely not enough aid distribution points, 4 for a population of that size is not enough. However there must also be enormous logistical issues in setting up more.

Nevertheless, as you say, something needs to shift because of the risk and human suffering involved, there has been too much already.

We will have to disagree on Israel being primarily culpable. I will always maintain that Israel is in a nightmare of a situation where they are between a rock and a hard place, and many people will criticise them no matter what, just for existing. Which makes any dialogue very difficult because the old tropes just start being thrown around. And none of us know what's really going on because of so much disinformation.

That being said, I loathe certain members of the current government, and I detest any extremism on either side. However I won't engage in further debate on this as these threads always turn into a hatefest.

Its horrifying, I'm seeing images of clearly staving parents holding their starving children and its devastating, many of these children now need specialist care and nutrition before they can even start eating normally again from what I understand. I feel so powerless and disgusted with what man can do to his fellow man, to little children.

What pressure? Where?

You can try and take the moral high ground, as much as some of you like. Snarky general comments about posters being ashamed of themselves, isn't going to do anything to help what's going on. It's easy to judge from the comfort of your own home. When you are presented with conflicting sources and haven't taken the time to research the conflict, genocide is the quick fire answer. I'm not going to defend that on yet another thread, so I will bow out.

👏 👏

Lettherivranswer was a well balanced response. It was educated and fair.
What is sickening about it?

While the world argues about the extent to which Israel is restricting aid at the border, or Hamas is hoarding aid that does get in, children are starving.

Why is the world allowing Israel to refuse entry to the world's media into Gaza? If Israel have nothing to hide, and Hamas are indeed hoarding aid, surely they would want this situation exposed and internationally verified?

I will always maintain that Israel is in a nightmare of a situation where they are between a rock and a hard place, and many people will criticise them no matter what, just for existing.
I sincerely appreciate this, as best I can as a person living in a stable and secure place. I'm acutely aware of the existential threat felt by many Israelis.

I also understand that it is magnitudes easier for an impartial outsider to say "we should err on the side of humanitarianism" than it is for Israelis, for a whole host of reasons - most notably, trauma and very legitimate fear for future security.

Honestly, I am sympathetic to (I feel) a very significant degree, and get angered at a lot of words spoken against Jews, Israeli's, and Israel (particularly in the sense of its right to exist, and to ensure that it continues to).

What we are seeing right now though, is horrifying, and yet could be the lead up to a truly terrible tipping point. Things are already beyond dire, and they're on the verge of becoming catastrophic. Israel is seldom afforded easy choices but when so many lives might be hanging in the balance, in an extremely immediate sense, relief just has to be given.

@Letstheriveranswerthe rock and hard place presumably being let children starve to death, or don’t

I watched an interview recently of an Israeli school teacher. Apparently, the majority of secondary-aged children in Israel are taken to visit concentration camps in Poland as part of the curriculum. I had not been aware of this.

This teacher was talking about how she had travelled with her class. One day, while the children were sitting inside the wire fencing of a particular concentration camp, some noticed that there were some villages nearby, visible through the fencing. The children asked how people in the 1940s could have possibly carried on with their lives outside the concentration camps, when they would have seen the smoke and must have known what was going on inside. The teacher thought this might be a good opportunity to ask the children to reflect on what is happening not in the 1940s, but right now in Gaza. It did not go down well. I think she said she was sacked after the trip.

@banquepopulaire please share the interview. I don't believe it.
If it's true it's breathtaking in the stupidity of such comments.
Gazans were working in Israel. Muslims live in Israel and are part of the parliament there. Israel has Muslim judges.
The fact the terrorists knew where to go on 7th October was because the Gazans who worked in Israel showed them the way.
Jews in Germany or rather the German Jewish people were rounded up and slaughtered they didn't die as a result of a war. The two are completely not comparable.

I agree with a PP above. Get the aid to the children of Gaza. Get Hamas away from the aid.

Letstheriveranswer's post is ccompletely correct. There is a massive amount of aid in Gaza not being distributed. It's just that the truth doesn't fit some people's worldview.

I have seen pictures of starving children on the knees of mothers who, put it this way, definitely aren't. What is going on?

And what did the Bibas babies do wrong?

This, Hamas need to be away from the aid sites.

"I have seen pictures of starving children on the knees of mothers who, put it this way, definitely aren't. What is going on?"

What does this even mean ffs? You do realise babies need milk?

This was explained to you when you asked this question on another thread a few days ago. Perhaps you’ve forgotten in the interim? Or does the answer not suit?

I hear you, OP. I was in floods of tears this morning looking at footage of starving babies and children. My heart hurts and I feel so bloody helpless.

Absolutely nothing, and their deaths are a tragedy. But the children of Gaza didn’t commit those crimes, and yet they’re being punished for it.

Your next argument will be “but Hamas!”. In the meantime, children on both sides are murdered, or radicalised, so that in another few years, all this repeats again.

@OrangeHearted

On every single Israel/Gaza thread, you deny that Palestinian children are starving, you say that even if they are, Israel is blameless and you threaten to leave every thread and then never do.

A retired US special forces officer, a former employee of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), who are the only organisation allowed to distribute aid in Gaza has stated that he has witnessed war crimes being committed by the IDF who are shooting Palestinian civilians queueing for aid. He said:

'In his entire career he has never witnessed such a level of "brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population".'

No-one should be able to defend what is happening to babies and children in Gaza. It's a humanitarian catastrophe. Why doesn't the Israeli Government allow independent journalists into Gaza if they have absolutely nothing to hide?

Like I said, the mothers aren't malnourished.

Surely both can be true - that Israel is restricting aid AND there are huge difficulties in distributing any aid that gets in (whether caused by Hamas or just people's desperation, I don't know)?

Why is no one furious with Egypt? They are next door, they could let the children in. There have been so many examples of children being evacuated from war zones by neighbouring countries, why is there no international pressure or condemnation on egypt, they could do far more to help these children than we can from over here. All the sanctions in the world aren’t going to stop this but Egypt could save so many lives.