How is forced starvation allowed?

[Tinycatnoise]

The top story in the BBC right now is the starvation of Gazans by Israel. The images are horrifying and not dissimilar to seeing those images of concentration camps in Nazi Germany. I cried seeing those and am crying now. I am sure someone will claim antisemitism because of this statement, but anyone looking at these images of starving children would agree.

How is this still going on? I feel like we are watching a genocide take place that the world has turning a blind eye to. The daily shooting by Israel of people trying to get aid too is just barbaric. If nothing is being done to stop this, what is the next horror that will unfold in the world that people will just accept?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9xkx7vnmxo

There is also evidence that Hamas is not responsible for the lack of aid reaching Palestinians. Aid going (or more prevalent the lack of it) into Gaza is being used as a tool of war by Israel, under the guise that Hamas will steal it.

Israeli military officials (speaking on the condition of anonymity) have said that there is no proof that Hamas systematically stole UN aid!

“The military officials who spoke to The New York Times said that the original U.N. aid operation was relatively reliable and less vulnerable to Hamas interference than the operations of many of the other groups bringing aid into Gaza. That’s largely because the United Nations managed its own supply chain and handled distribution directly inside Gaza.“

“An internal U.S. government analysis came to a similar conclusion. It found no evidence of systematic Hamas theft of U.S.-funded humanitarian supplies, the report said.”

https://archive.ph/ikwbQ

@Kakeandkake

"@1dayatatime please share a source to back up your deliberate or mistaken lie that Egypt was or is refusing to allow aid into Gaza?"

More than happy to from Wiki:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Gaza_border

"After Hamas took over in 2007, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade on the movement of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip.[2] In the same year, Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing.[3] The blockade's stated aims are to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza and exert economic pressure on Hamas.[1]Human rights groups have called the blockade illegal and a form of collective punishment, as it restricts the flow of essential goods, contributes to economic hardship, and limits Gazans' freedom of movement."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

In the last 24 hours aid to Gaza has now started to cross the border from Egypt:

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/aid-trucks-move-egypt-gaza-after-israel-said-it-began-airdrops-2025-07-26/

Now this raises the question of what motivated you to describe my original post that Egypt had closed its border with Gaza for transfer of aid as a "deliberate or mistaken lie" when a simple google search has shown it to be factually accurate.

I know that I'm not going to change your views on Gaza but I would ask you to reflect on why you would dismiss a statement as a lie rather than research it, simply because you didn't like what was being said.

@Kakeandkake

"I am curious as to why you only mentioned Israel on your post and failed to mention that Egypt is also refusing to allow aid to enter Gaza."

1dayatatime
"This is such a blatant lie. Why bother lying about such obvious things."

Now that I have provided evidence for my statement, would you be so kind as retracting your post accusing me of lying.

The allowance of aid into Gaza seems to have blindsided someone the media with a particular bias who possibly in their hearts wishing the starvation to continue as it acted as a fantastic recruiting agent to the Palestinian cause. We have probably got the ruthless killers of Hamas rubbing their hands on glee when they got France to support a Pelatinian state as a result of choice pictures of starving choldren. The leadership of Hamas will want more pictures emerging to maybe push Britain in the same direction....I think Israel has misjudged this but Hamas are definitely reaping benefits in the cold calculus of war and statehood

A credible source but lacks some info about their electoral system which gives a better picture of how many people actually voted for them.

As another person has explained, the number of seats won is different to share of the actual vote. Hamas and Fatah were meant to lead together but Hamas seized control. I would not share information that I hadn’t checked properly/knew something about. As I’ve said before, my opinion is based on facts, evidence, research.

"I am curious as to why you only mentioned Israel on your post and failed to mention that Egypt is also refusing to allow aid to enter Gaza."

@1dayatatime this is deliberately misleading and you know it. During the war Egypt has allowed aid into Gaza but Israel took over the Rafah crossing. At the start of the war when Egypt was trying to send aid in, Israel bombed the crossing too.
Israel still controls the crossing and will only permit Egypt to allow in aid that they give permission for.

They could have shared an honest story? Had they shown the child with his healthy, well fed brother, would that not have been more honest?

How do you know that his brother is 'healthy'? You can tell that from a photo can you? And 'well fed' how do you know what the child is eating, you know that his brother has been eating a balanced diet with adequate protein and fresh fruits and vegetables? Can you give the source you are using for your claims?

They could also have taken a photo of him beside lots of other skeletal children in Gaza. That too would have been honest.

Yes, I can tell the difference between someone who's starving and someone who's well fed from a photo.

I’m sorry but what enables you to describe the brother as healthy or well fed? Other than looking at a photo and deciding he’s not thin enough to be starving? Do you understand that when there’s little/no food, babies (especially ones with additional medical needs) show signs of starvation first then children then adults because of the reserves they have. That boy may still not have eaten for days. Not to mention the many other photos that have been spread of sick children and people desperately trying to get food. Are they thin enough for you or do we need to wait until everyone is literally skins and bones to feel pity? And must we completely disregard NGO and charity accounts that describe the situation as dire for those poor innocent people?

Picking on one photo in a load of evidence and using it to attempt to spread doubt about what’s going on makes no sense and the lack of humanity is unbelievable.

Right now Gaza is on the tipping point and whether we see the large numbers of children with swollen bellies and poking out ribs that you are calling out for, really depends on what happens next.

So you can rest assured that other children in this family may not look skeletal yet but are likely to be feeling hungry and lacking nutrients.

Sorry but you have entered Alice in Wonderland territory now where what you can plainly see can be called nonsense.

So you can rest assured that other children in this family may not look skeletal yet but are likely to be feeling hungry and lacking nutrients.
This

I have mentioned before that I had a very sick malnourished child as a baby, within weeks she was resembling a famine baby with extended belly and muscle wastage. They had a relapse of the condition at 7 years and within weeks still looked relatively healthy, only me and dh could see the difference. Posters do not seem to realise that babies will physically show the effect of malnourishment long before a bigger older child and adult will. Doesn't mean the older kids are getting any more food and nutrients than the baby. It is sick we even have to explain this, the denial is so entrenched I will not engage in this game anymore.

Selective imagery is not the same as honest reporting. If you need to crop out the healthy sibling and present a medically ill child as evidence of mass starvation, then the truth clearly isn’t dramatic enough for your narrative.

Nobody is disputing that people are suffering, but if the cause is just, you don’t need to manufacture optics by hiding facts. And frankly, weaponising pity while dismissing the importance of accuracy is how trust in NGOs, journalism, and actual humanitarian crises gets eroded.

This is, by the way the FOURTH time I've seen a sick child presented as starving with no mention of an underlying medical condition so yes, I’ll continue to question propaganda dressed up as compassion. If that bothers you, maybe ask yourself why you’re more invested in pushing a narrative than in demanding honesty from the people who deliver the news to you.

I'm not calling for that. I'm asking for honest reporting.

But that isn’t the only evidence? If that image isn’t good reporting to you, don’t use it to inform your opinion. It’s that simple. It’s not the only image that was shared by the media and, like I said, there are many other reliable sources to use instead. Fixating on this one image rather than looking at the broader body of evidence doesn’t make sense and makes you appear to be pushing a narrative. I’m asking for you to look at all the evidence - no narrative to push other than use all the evidence to form your opinion. That photo shows me that a child is very poorly, other sources show me other children are very unwell too, UN reports tell me that people are struggling to get food, charities are telling me that aid needs to sent in urgently.

And please do not look at a photo and judge whether someone is thin enough to be starving. You cannot judge how much food anyone in those photos has eaten in the last month or what their body is going through.

Do you think Hamas winning the election in 2006 justifies starving nearly 2 million people (half children)?

The problem with propaganda is that it means you can no longer trust the news you read.

When emotionally charged images are used without context, especially images of children with medical conditions, it’s a deliberate attempt to manipulate public opinion. This tactic plays on instinctive human empathy and bypasses critical thinking. It’s powerful, it spreads fast, and it’s hard to question without being accused of lacking compassion.

The fact that this has happened multiple times in this conflict, with known cases of disease or unrelated medical issues being passed off as solely starvation, shows that certain activists or media outlets are more concerned with creating outrage than telling the truth.

The aim isn’t to inform. It’s to shock, shame, and stir blind fury, even if that means exploiting sick children and ignoring basic journalistic standards.

Therefore i simply dont believe or trust what i read as what's coming out of Gaza and being shared around the world may or may not be misleading.

What a shame that people can't stand up for basic moral principles anymore. I am so sad for those suffering in this conflict that the world is more interested in manufacturing rage than reporting on the facts honestly.

Are their lives worth that little?

Israel closed the border, they ve now reopened it, allowing in aid.

You misled by saying it was Egypt & what happened almost 20 years ago is irrelevant.

It is extremely difficult to verify the situation on the ground for sure. I also wish that Israel would allow journalists, lawyers and investigators in to Gaza to verify what’s going on.

But when you put together the information that we do have it’s clear that Gaza is in desperate need of aid. Do you really think that international governments are reacting because of a photo?

You are saying I want to see large numbers of previously healthy children that look visibly starved and closer to death before I say that aid delivery should be facilitated.

Or maybe you just don’t understand how malnutrition works through a population.

@Voxon You mention truth. So let’s sit with the truth:

The truth is that nearly 2 million people in Gaza are starving.

The truth is that humanitarian agencies like the World Food Programme, UNICEF, Oxfam, and Médecins Sans Frontières have all said there is catastrophic hunger, mass malnutrition, and that this famine is man-made.

The truth is that Israel has blocked aid, bombed bakeries, destroyed water infrastructure, and made it virtually impossible for fuel, food, or medical supplies to reach people.

Yes, some images might lack full medical context, but the truth doesn’t depend on one photo. It is backed by every major humanitarian organisation, all of whom are saying the same thing: children are dying of starvation.

You ask, “Are their lives worth that little?”
That’s exactly what I’m asking too.

The issue isn’t whether Gaza needs aid, everyone agrees it does. The issue is truthfulness and responsible reporting.

In this case, it was journalists who cropped the original photo to remove the clearly healthier sibling, thereby pushing a misleading narrative. So I don't agree more journalists will solve the issue -honest journalism is what's needed.

You say international governments aren't reacting to a photo, but viral images are what drive media coverage and policy pressure in this age. Visuals shape public opinion more than long-form reports ever do. So yes, it matters when those visuals are misleading, especially when it's not the first time a child with a known medical condition has been portrayed as a victim of starvation. That’s not raising awareness; it’s emotional manipulation.

Pointing out misrepresentation isn't the same as demanding proof of mass starvation before supporting aid. It’s demanding honesty. If the cause is just, it shouldn't need doctored images to justify it.

You’ve lost me at:
“it matters when those visuals are misleading, especially when it's not the first time a child with a known medical condition has been portrayed as a victim of starvation.“

They ARE a victim of starvation.

If a child can only survive on specialist formula and that formula is blocked or impossible to find because of a siege- then yes, they’ve starved to death.

Medical vulnerability doesn’t cancel out the fact they died of hunger. It just proves how obscene it is that children with complex needs were left to die first.

So the real question isn’t whether the image was cropped. It’s: why are we debating journalism standards while children are dying without food?

Let’s not pretend the issue here is “truth.” The truth is nearly 2 million people are starving.

The poor child has been starved of medical care and aid on purpose and now looks skeletal. That is shocking to most of us. It does make most us pretty angry.

I've seen videos where Drs have been talking about these poor skeletal children, for instance in one case they said they had no IV potassium, something which every hospital should have an abundance of. A child desperately needed potassium, they tried oral potassium but the child was too malnurished for her body to be able to absorb it proberly so she died. A child died because she was malnurished and didn't have normal medical care because Israel purposefully starved her in multiple ways. Knowing the full details of this doesn't make me feel any less empathetic, it doesn't make me feel any less angry or upset or disgusted.

There is no 'manufactured rage' here. Just utter sadness that Israel are killing off the most vulnerable Palestinians in an horrific, calculated drawn out way.

Calling this image “misrepresentation” is a misrepresentation in itself.

“It shouldn’t need doctored images to justify it.”

It doesn’t.

The justification is already there:
Entire families are starving. Aid is being blocked. Children are dying. That’s the reality- confirmed by multiple independent organisations and humanitarian agencies on the ground.

If you’re more outraged by a cropped photo than by a deliberate blockade that’s causing mass malnutrition, then it’s worth asking:
What’s really bothering you here?
Because no “image manipulation” created this crisis. The starvation is real. The death toll is real. The suffering is real.