A famine has been declared in Gaza city

[SaltAirAndTheRust]

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

Meanwhile, up to 80,000 troops are being prepared to start an offensive there. There are no longer any words

Who? Israel haters because he’s doing them a favour with his extremist views?

Got it in one👍

A cabinet minister with a disproportionate amount of power. If he and his right-wing pal Ben-Gvir step down (which they’ve threatened to do), Netanyahu loses the Knesset majority.

A cabinet minister who said they wanted to kill the Palestinian state by pushing through settlement plans in the WB.

A cabinet minister who condones settler violence (supervised by the IDF).

A cabinet minister who stated back in May that Gaza would be destroyed, people would be pushed into a small area with no hope and no reason to stay and they would eventually leave the area altogether.

I have no idea how popular his views are with normal Israeli people. But I do know that he welds enough power in government to make changes that are harming Palestinian people.

🤯

I thought it was just Gaza City declared a famine, not the whole of Gaza.

Are you referring to the vote that the members of the UN took re Hamas? Because that’s slightly different - I’m sure you can see that.

At the moment yes it is. The other areas are not in category 5 yet but with the influx to the south due to the assault on Gaza City the conditions there are expected to worsen in the future and they are expecting category 5 in Khan Younis and Deir El Balah by the end of September.

Exactly. Ben-Gvir wields real power and openly supports settler violence and Gaza destruction- his decisions are actively harming Palestinian civilians every day.

At the end of the day, they can sit and argue semantics all they want, but Gaza is a smouldering pile of rubble. 2 million people are starving/killed/displaced. The evidence of these policies speaks for itself.

Like the vote the members took where only two countries from 188 voted against making food a human right.

Bet you can't guess who they were..

Love how ‘caring about international law, human rights, and the real consequences of government policies, and critiquing actions that harm civilians has been neatly boiled down to ‘Israel haters’

I'm referring to the fact that the UN are more concerned about urging the UK to take PAG off the terrorist list than for Hamas to be proscribed as terrorists. I'm sure you can see that.

Also, If Netanyahu’s goal is really just ‘removing terrorists,’ why is there continued expansion and sale of settlements on the land? How does that serve security rather than entrenching control?

To return to the topic of famine and maybe this has been posted before but it is only recently I heard about refeeding syndrome. It was discovered after soliders who discovered the concentration camps gave the starving people food and many died quite soon after. It is too do with electrolytes (I'm not medical) .
Are we to going to see deaths due to this if people suddenly have access to a food drop etc after a long period without food.

When people only want to criticise Israel and not other countries I can draw my own conclusions about what really motivates them beyond the rhetoric.

I believe the UN is most concerned about innocent people being killed - that seems to be where the majority of their attention is pointed.

I’ve said this before. Israel weren’t even on my radar prior to this. Criticising Israel in no way precludes also criticising other countries.

The issue here is the scale and immediacy of civilian suffering in Gaza. Thousands of people, including 1.1 million children, are being deprived of food, water, and medical care right now by Israel. That’s what’s being discussed- not some abstract geopolitical consistency test.

There’s no logical reason for Israel to target civilians, yet we see repeated cases of children killed by drones and artillery. And this is not an isolated phenomenon.

Why do you think that is? Combined with statements from Netanyahu and other officials, what conclusion should we reasonably draw?

Yes, civilians die in every conflict- but this isn’t about the unfortunate inevitability of war. We’re seeing documented, systematic patterns: starvation, destruction of homes and hospitals, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and blocked aid.

When thousands of children are killed, hospitals bombed, and essential supplies withheld, this isn’t an “unfortunate accident”- it’s policy. It’s absolutely fair to hold the state enacting that policy responsible.

“What really motivates me” is simply wanting 1.1 million children to have the right to food, water, and shelter. Right now it’s Israel who are denying them that.

I very rarely see any balance in your posts I only ever see criticism going in Israel's direction (unless you are being specifically asked to condemn Hamas and then you may do so).

Anyway, I don't know you, I may be completely wrong in any assumptions I have made about you and others. All we have to go by is what each other post on MN.

To be fair, this is a thread about Israel and Gaza so those two places will be spoken about more than anywhere else. There are many countries I have a problem with but I wouldn’t discuss them on this thread. I think it is fair to explain why countries like Egypt aren’t taking in 2m refugees - that’s not me trying to make it all about Israel, it’s just explaining why another country shouldn’t rehome an entire population.

I also think there are some posters (not you - we’ve spoken a lot) who dodge any questions/posts that criticise Israel. Not accepting any criticism or at least avoiding any criticism of Israel is going to, at this point in time, attract attention because of the evidence out there.

People are shocked by what they are reading/seeing and are rightly criticising and questioning Israel’s actions. A thread like this is a good place to discuss and debate Israel’s actions. It’s a good place to share sources (and call out bias and misinformation).

Funny, I rarely see balance from Israel. Targeting and shooting children with drones, bombing hospitals, and blocking food and water- hardly “balanced,” is it?

Equally, I could ask what motivates you to justify these actions.

I think my response is completely appropriate and I won’t be gaslit into thinking I’m some Israel hater for calling out the state enacting disproportionate harm to civilians.

I think in other wars people tend to assume that children dying do so in a collateral damage sort of way. Sounds harsh but what I mean is we assume children aren't targeted (as they aren't military), instead they unfortunately get killed by being caught up in gunfire or bombing.

I've never known a war being reported where so many people jump on a bandwagon to say the children getting killed must have been targeted. That makes zero sense unless they are already prejudiced against Israel to think their soldiers are uniquely barbaric.

We're not talking about balance from either the IDF or Hamas. We're talking about the balance that people on MN may or may not show in their posts.

Interesting that Israel’s defenders often have nothing to say about my point that there’s no logical reason for Israel to target civilians.

When even safe zones are bombed it’s pretty clear what their aim is.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:
Even if Israel wants to remove Hamas, the idea that this requires bombing civilians, starving children, and destroying hospitals is not only morally indefensible but also legally a war crime.

There are alternatives that could neutralise Hamas without harming innocent people: targeted arrests of leaders and fighters, intercepting weapons smuggling, cyber operations to disrupt militant networks, and negotiation or international pressure.

Collective punishment of 2 million people cannot be justified as a strategy to "rid Gaza of Hamas."

Precision strikes in other contexts- like Iran- show that indiscriminate bombing is a choice, not a necessity.