US doctors letter : Death toll in Gaza likely close to 120k

[EasterIssland]

https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024

letter written by 99 US doctors to Biden - Harris.

Jesus. Not totally surprising, but Jesus Christ.

Those poor,poor people.

And noted in the letter how they say they do not support the actions of oct 7.

I dont know any single person on rl or on here who actually does support what happened on oct 7. It was barbaric and horrific. No one in their right mind would support that. Yet on mn if you criticise whats happened in Gaza you are told you hate Jewish people. No other discussion, you just hate Jews. Which is so far off the mark it would be laughable if it wasn't such a serious accusation. But it stops all discussion/criticism stone dead.

Which im beginning to think is the point of it.

Sorry to rant on your thread @EasterIssland.

Thank you for sharing it.
It's shocking, and we will never hear about it in the news.
The letter will have no reaction from the WH, because, I conclude, they approve of it.
The world we live in is different from what I used to think, but I don't know what to make of it.

Utterly depressing but sadly not surprising, this is most definitely a genocide.

Totally horrific. All of it. I read the UK letter too.
I would like to read the response.

I suspect the response will be silence until, years from now, history gives this genocide its place alongside other horrendous and sometimes hidden genocides and people study it in school and university and wonder how people could have let this happen.

It feels like all we can do now is record what is happening, so that history does not erase the mass murder of innocent people.

@Scirocco Sadly I think you are right.
It's a part of why I post so when people do look back they will see.

Thats very simplistic, isnt it? What people object to is the simplistic characterisation of the conflict. And given the dozens of threads going on for pages I dont think any discussion has been killed stone dead.

Actually, what tends to happen is exactly what's happened here - someone says something along the lines of "I always get falsely accused of anti-Semitism when I'm actually just against war" without anyone actually having accused anyone of anything of the sort and then someone, in this case me, feels the need to point out that it's not actually happened. But at that point it's too late and the "crying anti-Semitism" trope continues and people reading the thread start thinking it's true even when it isn't, leading to a further increase in actual anti-Semitism. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then what happens next is that I'll be accused of derailing the thread when actually, all I've done is respond to someone else's baseless accusations and then we all resort to name-calling and snide remarks and then I take another few weeks or months break from here because it's such an incredibly unhealthy space of people just wanting echo chambers and for people to choose a side and stick to it.

So yeah, I guess I'll see you again in a month or so.

And no, I haven't clicked on the link so I have no opinion on the matter, I got too distracted by the second comment. And no, I will not be clicking on the link if these are the kind of comments it generates.

What @Humdingerydoo said.

@Humdingerydoo but what is your response to the letter written by the medics?

@Humdingerydoo
Actually, what tends to happen is exactly what's happened here - someone says something along the lines of "I always get falsely accused of anti-Semitism when I'm actually just against war" without anyone actually having accused anyone of anything of the sort and then someone, in this case me, feels the need to point out that it's not actually happened. But at that point it's too late and the "crying anti-Semitism" trope continues and people reading the thread start thinking it's true even when it isn't, leading to a further increase in actual anti-Semitism. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Correct.

I find the folk who use that trope, especially repeatedly - usually because they don't like what they're hearing and have no other way to respond - are in fact deeply prejudiced towards Jewish people (at best). There was an awful anti-Muslim thread weeks ago where a poster used exactly the same trope, except about Islamophobia not antisemitism. But apparently it wasn't OK to say 'accusations of Islamophobia are used to shut down discussion' (which I agree, it's not OK). But the same people arguing it wasn't OK think it's just fine and dandy to continually fire it at Jewish people. Off the scale hypocrisy.

@MissyB1 It's completely immaterial what she thinks of the letter. If posters are going to wheel out racist tropes then it needs called out, derail or not!

Humdingerydoo, I agree this forum can be bad for one’s mental health. I also have to take a break now and again. I’m trying to spend more time improvement my Arabic as a distraction to what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon as it upsets me so much. Personally I try and avoid some of the more pro continuing the conflict threads as much as I can. Just avoid threads like this. It doesn’t matter if it is an echo chamber.

Really distressing read, I really hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both.

Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea.

Malnutrition led to widespread spontaneous abortions, underweight newborns, and an inability of new mothers to breastfeed. This left their newborns at high risk of death given the lack of access to potable water anywhere in Gaza. Many of those infants died.

These accounts suggest children are running out of time.

At some stage the press will get into Gaza. Then there will be no hiding place.

I’m afraid it’ll fall in deaf ears. It’s not the first letter US doctors have sent to Biden - Harris and these haven’t changed anything.

I have not read the letter yet, I will do later on when I have a few min. Thanksfor the link.
Witjout even reading it, just the number makes full sense, seeing the images of the buildings in Gaza.
The sickness is a sad logic outcome too, for the amount of bodie left in the rubble and how close the surviving population is to it.
That is even without counting in the food shortage, no medical attention, displacement, living in tents and the stress of it all.

It's not immaterial what posters on this thread think about the topic of the thread! Why come on here if you don't have an opinion on it?!

If you read her post its very clear.

Yes it is crystal clear

I would urge everyone to read the letter. This was written by a multi-faith, multi-ethnic group pf professionals who, as they say: "are among the only neutral observers who have been permitted to enter the Gaza Strip since October 7. Given our broad expertise and direct experience of working throughout Gaza we are uniquely positioned to comment on several matters of importance..."

Please don't de-rail this important thread. Listen to the voices that are pretty much the closest thing to neutral expert reports available from Gaza.

The letter unfortunately makes a huge amount of sense. In countries where there is conflict and the health and other infrastructures have broken down you tend to get many times more excess deaths from indirect causes such as malnutrition and infectious diseases than from direct causes such as blast and shotgun injuries. These are usually concentrated among the youngest and oldest.

I would be interested as well in why people would choose not to read accounts from relatively neutral experts in their fields, about such an important issue?