#starving and malnourished palestinians.

[martyrbat]

[ID: two screenshots from a TikTok video. In them, we see a Palestinian's hands as they show a MRE (Meals Ready-to-Eat) package that was air dropped. On it, we can see the instructions include pouring water to activate the flameless ration heater. The second photo shows one of the items is peach applesauce. White text over the photos read: “This is the shit America sent to Palestine. Expired army food. You can hear a man saying "this is not halal". Shame on the USA”. Above that is text in Arabic which reads: “What is in US aid??” END ID]

A reminder that the sodium level is dangerously high—being from 1.6g/meal to 2.3g/meal and you have to eat two to three to consume the proper amount of calories since each contains around 1.2k cals. The recommendation for sodium is less than 2k milligrams (1g) a day. These are used as a quick military meal/training one and because of the high intensity activities and the physical health that a soldier is require to have, the levels aren't as dangerous since they're expelling the excess sodium. And MRE aren't meant to be the only meal, even for the military the DoD policy requires MREs to be replaced or paired with fresh foods when able to because these lack essentials nutrients like fatty-acids and fiber

Sources & additional links (many of these are pages to PDFs, you can use Firefox to open them without downloading):

Original TikTok video

DLA website — Homepage for MRE's, page with several photos of the food after time passed (and with different storage conditions) and where it shows the 'menus'. The one in the video is Menu 12 and the last time it included hot sauce (as shown in linked video) was 2020 (MRE XL) and the first time was in 2016 (MRE XXXVI). As found on the homepage link, the shelf life is 3 years unless it was stored in the cold.

During Hurricane Katrina, a 77 year old man had heart failure after primarily relying on MREs for his every meal because they're not meant for usual civilian aid. He was able to make a recovery after having hospital aid, something Palestinians aren't given due to the blockade to medical supplies — Military Medicine (Oxford Academic)

MREs not being sustainable or healthy, especially for long-term use: Total Prepare, Military Medicine, ScienceDirect

MREs usually require water to work and can lead to faster dehydration and blood pressure due to the sodium levels. However, Gaza has been under a water crisis for years in both quantity and quality because of Israel's blockade, which has only grown more dire since Israel's increased attacks — +972mag (January 16, 2024), NPR (December 29, 2023), UNICEF (June 2022)

Israel denying essential supplies, including food, water filtration systems and purification tablets, medical equipment, anesthesia, etc. and murdering Palestinians when aid does get through— CNN (March 2, 2024), UN Human Rights (March 5, 2024), Al Jazeera on the Flour Massacre (March 5, 2024), Twitter thread of IOF shooting and killing starving Palestinians even before the Flour Massacre (warning for graphic imagery), Eyes on Palestine via Instagram (March 1, 2024)

Defense.gov saying it dropped 'over 36,800 meals' in it's second airdrop. The first was 38,000. Using both numbers (if each MRE was able to be received), a person will need 3 meals required to meet their calorie requirement for one day. If meeting the requirements, it'll feed only 24,933 people for one day out of the over 2.3 million people who are being starved. If you divide it for one meal per person, it'll only feed 74,800 people.

Biden still funding Israel despite the massive aid blockade that's killing thousands — CBS News (March 5, 2024)

Airdrops are incredibly inefficient in delivering aid. They supply less while being more expensive, they're unreliable to be received (especially considering the state of Gaza after being bombed consistently for almost 5 months, landing in the ocean, wind that has blown some in Israeli territory, IOF soldiers still murdering Palestinians if out in the open, health crisis from malnutrition, stampede risks, etc) The fact that they're saying it's being used as 'a last resort' when Isreal is refusing thousands of aid trucks from entering and are using them as bait to murder Palestinians when they do allow entry is beyond insulting. — The Electronic Intifada, NPR, BBC

The effects of starvation: your body eventually starts eating your muscles for protein after the fat reserves are exhausted (which makes receiving the airdrops even more dangerous). Your heart walls grow weaker and the chambers grow larger which makes pumping blood harder, making you more at risk of heart failure. You're fatigued, your immune system is dangerously weak and your organs physically grow smaller as your body eats itself and your organs fail. — NPR, Disease-related Malnutrition: An Evidence-based Approach to Treatment, PCRM, Starvation Response

So the "food" that the US dropped to Gaza is MREs. Expired. Saw a stitch of this video from a woman saying this is the same thing they did with Hurricane Katrina survivors.

MREs are shelf stable for 7 years. Total. These ones were over 15 years old.

And ofc there were people in the comments being like "ummm well our military eats them just fine, they were expired when I was in the army too" THATS NOT OKAY THO?? NO ONE SHOULD BE FORCED TO EAT EXPIRED FOOD!

Fuck the US, fuck the Israeli government, and fuck you if you think that this is any kind of help to the people of Gaza. They're starving to death and the US is sending expired applesauce while also giving bombs to their murderers.

[stuckinapril]

it broke today that biden airdropped aid to gaza. other than the fact that this is an obvious pr move ahead of his re-election campaign, i think it's important to stress how ineffective this method is compared to just allowing humanitarian aid to come through. airdrops carry far less aid than truck convoys, for one, and require an airdrop zone with a lot of idealistic conditions that don't often coincide. this is a major reason why you hear a lot of airdrops being conducted at beaches--and why a lot of them have been blown to the sea. and what's even more dangerous about that is that a lot of these palestinians are malnourished, starving, in a delirious state of mind. many of them are so utterly hungry that they'd be willing to swim through just to get their hands on a sodden meal. but apparently this is the best thing the us, which literally funds israel's ongoing genocide, can do for palestinians at the moment.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes – and genocide, according to the UN’s leading expert on the right to food. Hunger and severe malnutrition are widespread in the Gaza Strip, where about 2.2 million Palestinians are facing severe shortages resulting from Israel destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies. Aid trucks and Palestinians waiting for humanitarian relief have come under Israeli fire. “There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian. “Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable – not just individuals or this government or that person.”

[...]

“The speed of malnourishment of young children is also astounding. The bombing and people being killed directly is brutal, but this starvation – and the wasting and stunting of children – is torturous and vile. It will have a long-term impact on the population physically, cognitively and morally … All things indicate that this has been intentional,” said Fakhri, a law professor at the University of Oregon. Intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime, according to the Rome statute of the international criminal court. Indispensable objects include food, water and shelter – which Israel is systematically denying Palestinians. Starvation is a war crime under the Geneva conventions and the Rome statute. It was also recognized as a war crime and general violation of international law by the UN security council in 2018.

[...]

The speed of the malnutrition crisis speaks to the fact that even before this war, half of Gazans were food insecure and almost 80% relied on humanitarian aid due to the 16-year blockade. A 2019 study on small-scale agriculture in the Palestinian territories found that “the Israeli occupation is the most important single driver of food and nutrition insecurity.” “It was already a very fragile situation due to Israel’s chokehold on what goes in and out of Gaza. So when the war started, Israel was very easily able to make everyone go hungry because they had most people on the brink,” said Fakhri.

[magz]

Lets Talk Palestine (Instagram channel)

February 24, 2024

• 92 Palestinians killed, 121 injured in Gaza in past 24 hours

• Mass anti-government protests across Tel Aviv as Israeli’s have grown impatient to lack of a hostage deal and are calling for an election to see Netanyahu leave, showing mounting disdain for the government. Police have arrested 21 people and reports show the use of water cannons to disperse protestors

• Israeli air raid hits home housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, killing 7 incl. 1 child

• Gaza ceasefire talks in Paris seems to be the most serious push in weeks; Israel’s war cabinet will convene to vote on the proposed outline & framework, indicating that something “tangible” was produced, especially as Israeli negotiators will be sent to to Qatar to continue talks. This doesn’t mean a ceasefire is close or that Israel has halted its plan to invade Rafah — these talks are unpredictable & subject to change

• Armed Israeli settlers assault 2 Palestinians at a make-shift checkpoint in Hebron (West Bank)

-

February 25, 2024

• 86 Palestinians killed, 142 injured in Gaza in past 24 hours

• Palestinians in northern Gaza are being starved as they’ve been cut off from aid as Israel’s relentless bombardment has prevented aid transport from southern Gaza; UNRWA hasn’t delivered any aid since Jan 23. Kamal Adwan Hospital (north) reports increased malnutrition: 1 in 6 kids are “severely malnourished” + hospitals struggling due to lack of fuel, medicine & ambulances

👆 Almost all aid in Gaza goes through Rafah crossing (Egypt) in the south but in recent weeks it has been almost totally halted, dropping from 200 trucks/day to 57, some days less than 20. 2,000+ trucks with enough to feed the entire population have piled up outside the crossing, prevented from entering by Israel. Meanwhile, Israelis have been protesting for weeks at Karem Abu Salem crossing, blocking aid trucks

• Netanyahu affirms Rafah ground invasion, saying a hostage deal would only somewhat delay the invasion

[fairuzfan]

im sure you probably get asked this a lot, but i have no idea what the whole deal with israel and palestine is

the only thing ive heard is from someone i overheard next to me in a lecture that palestine terrorists attacked israel or something but im starting to think im missing a lot of important context with that

Hi, thanks for sending this in. I've had this in my inbox for a while now because I feel like I didn't know where to start. There is this new crash course online that educates about history and information regarding Palestine's colonization and the history leading up to October 7th, 2023. I recommend taking a look at this resource first:

Generally, a quick rundown is that on October 7th, a group of resistance fighters launched a coordinates attack on the state of Israel and took some hostages back to Gaza. They had done this specifically because Gaza was experiencing a critical point on the 20 year seige the Israeli state imposed on them — even before this they were struggling to find clean water and their economy was severely damaged since their imports were calculated by the calorie by Israel. So they were starved and malnourished, many people with medical issues were not granted access to seek help outside of Gaza if they needed specialized care.

In 2018, Gazans had launched the "Great March Of Return" where they marched en masse to the militarized fence separating Gaza and "Israel." This was, by all accounts, a peaceful protest, though the Israeli government responded with brutal force, killing children as small as 2 years old and elderly people as old as about 80 years old.

This had gone on for a while in 2018, after every Friday prayer, and hundreds died. Even if they were not killed, a large number of them were critically wounded. There are many Palestinians disabled from bullet wounds, and the Israeli government purposefully does not allow them to seek treatment if they require it.

This, coupled with the estimation that Gaza would be absolutely unlivable in a couple years, caused an armed resistance to break out, which is what you hear with the "terrorists" attacking Israeli settlements. Now the reports of who killed Israeli civilians is widely argued, with many claiming that Hamas (some of the resistance fighters) did not kill the majority of Israeli casualties, like in this account from a survivor in which they described that the majority of deaths from the kibbutz were because of Israeli indiscriminate firing:

I can't say I totally understand what is going on now with the resistance fighters, but I know that Israel has tried, and failed, a number of times to invade gaza, always getting fended off by the resistance.

Now, gazans are suffering collective punishment where they are bombed indiscriminately in residential areas, hospitals, and schools, all under the excuse that there are "Hamas tunnels" they wish to destroy that lie under Gaza. They provide no evidence of this — they just claim it and drop the bombs. About 10,000 Palestinians have died from the bombing, many of them in pieces, about half of them children. They are also suffering an unprecedented siege where absolutely NO water, fuel, or food is allowed in Gaza (except for like 20 trucks one time) since October 7th. Gazans are reported to have completely run out of clean water. A vast majority of them are showing symptoms from drinking dirty water like vomiting and diarrhea. The water in Gaza does not work, so they are suffering from sanitation issues that will no doubt make the spread of disease proliferate.

I can go on about the issues the Gazans face, but you can scroll through my blog to learn more. Right now Gaza is suffering a humanitarian crisis and genocide. Palestinians in the west Bank are getting arrested en masse, tortured and humiliated by Israeli police and settlers. They are also getting shot randomly. Right now is the collective effort to completely erase Palestinians off the face of the earth, led by Israel and the United States, all for their own selfish interests.

Check out some posts here as well:

Please let me know if you have any questions about anything. Feel free to dm.

[petrowriting]

Ahmed and his family from Palestine need our help to get out of Gaza and to safety. Israel is deliberatley starving the people of Gaza, and he and his family have been moving from place to place seeking shelter and safety, but the occupier has beseiged every part of Gaza, leaving nowhere safe. Ahmed, Eman, Zain and Leen need funds to cross the border into Egypt. Zain and Leen are only children, both under 10 years of age, and Israel's deliberate starvation has left them malnourished and weak. Even their family's cat did not survive, succumbing to the constant bombardment. To cross into Egypt, they have been asked to pay $5000 for each person over 16 years old and $2500 for those under 16. The total goal is €15,000. It's an exploitation even amidst a genocide that the money simply goes to those who take it in Egypt, but it's what they need to make it out and to survive. Please consider donating even $10 to help Ahmed and his family cross the border and get to safety!

[nohkalikai]

We are a group of individuals and collectives in revolutionary solidarity with the people of  Palestine. As a response to the feminist call to strike for Gaza on the 8th of March (International Women’s Day), we feel the need to put out this statement to recognise the occupational, genocidal deprivations perpetrated by the terrorist settler-colonial Zionist state of Israel that has led to a death toll of over 30000 Palestinians with countless trapped under rubble, decomposed, and millions displaced. We bear witness to the carceral violence, torture, humiliation and murder of Palestinians, especially those held captive in besieged Gaza and hostages taken by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). This includes a wide range of carceral forms of torture including the use of  Palestinian men as human shields, widely circulated dehumanising images of public sexual violation of Palestinian men, sexual assault of Palestinian women in Zionist prisons, enforced disappearance of children, and other acts of violence and debilitation. These largely go unreported, under-reported or misreported because of the Zionist hold over mainstream media.

Humanitarian aid is being withheld by Israel to intentionally starve Gazans as an instrument of ethnic cleansing and genocide. When the few aid trucks are allowed by Israel to finally cross into Gaza, or aid is airdropped by other countries attempting to break Israel’s siege, the Zionist army bomb, shoot, kill, and run over Palestinians rushing to food trucks as seen in multiple incidents including the recent flour massacre. Children continue to die from starvation and severe climate conditions; and those not dead yet are severely malnourished. Since October 7, Israel has incessantly bombed Gaza from F16s using 2,000-pound US-supplied bombs that blow up whole neighborhoods, internationally banned white phosphorus, and smaller lethal bombs dropped from the constantly circling drones. Israel has destroyed the 70% of the housing stock in Gaza, rendered all hospitals unable to provide care, and has further destroyed medical facilities, desalination plants that supplies clean water, schools and universities, public archives, cultural and historical landmarks, mosques  and churches, bakeries, roads and highways, and all civilian resources and infrastructure crucial for survival rendering Gaza unlivable. The sustained targeted attack on medical facilities have necessitated medical procedures like amputations and C-sections without anesthetics while the  neonatals and infants are dying on hospital beds and ICUs for lack of oxygen. Palestinian medics are not only overworked and severely under-resourced but under direct attack. Mass graves continue to pile up and Israel strips Palestinians of dignity even in death. Palestinian families are not allowed to recover bodies. Instead, the occupying forces attack and bomb graveyards and steal dead bodies for organs and skin to be used in Israeli forensic institutes. We have also seen the insidious images of Israeli soldiers posing with looted Palestinian women’s lingerie, mannequins, stealing children’s toys and making videos cooking inside houses Gazans have been forcibly displaced from. The entire population of Gaza has been subjected to collective punishment directed towards the acts of resistance forces, which is, in fact, the right of a colonized people for self-determination and autonomy. Israel has carried out  targeted attacks on journalists, medics, artists, academics and anyone who can help save lives and ensure the survival of Palestinian culture. The Zionist regime has killed over a 100 journalists to suppress news coming out of Gaza. Murdering journalists has been a tool to silence Palestinian voices throughout the 75 years of occupation. We recall the targeted killing of journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 in occupied West Bank. We honour and learn from resilient voices like Wael Al-Dahdouh who survived an Israeli attack and whose entire family was murdered by Israel.

The Zionist entity also has a long history of pinkwashing, touting itself as a queer haven, and using that as a justification for genocide. We see IDF soldiers proudly upholding rainbow flags on rubble or others proposing to their partners amidst the horrors they inflict on the Palestinians. We see from various archives of queerness that Palestinian queers have always resisted this. Queer people all over the world reject Israel’s pinkwashing with the slogans, ‘Not in our name’, ‘Not Gay as in Happy but Queer as in Free Palestine’ and ‘No Pride in Apartheid’, and lately, ‘No Pride in Genocide’. We call for all queer comrades to include the liberation of Palestine in their imagination of queer liberation. Amidst the excruciating, incomprehensible ongoing physical and emotional trauma genocidal occupation inflicts, we call on our mad, queer, crip comrades to unflinchingly demand a free Palestine because disability and queer justice is intimately tied to Palestinian liberation.

On January 26 2024, in the case against Israel brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that through the actions of Israel, Gaza is experiencing a plausible genocide. The ICJ ordered six Provisional Measures that under law, Israel must fulfill. The ICJ ordered Israel to take measures within its power to prevent genocidal acts, including preventing and punishing incitement to genocide, ensuring aid and services reach the Palestinian population in Gaza, and preserving evidence of crimes committed in Gaza. As we can see, Israel has completely ignored and defied all Provisional Measures.This also shows the impunity Israel enjoys because it is backed by imperial regimes. It reveals how colonial imperialism undergirds international law that has historically failed the colonised by protecting the interests of colonial imperialist regimes. Yet, the colonised have stood strong in their struggle for freedom and liberation, which has historically led to the downfall of colonial empires.

We understand that our liberation as oppressed people is deeply intertwined with struggles of the oppressed worldwide. We recognise India’s complicity in enabling the genocide and occupation of Palestine. A recent report by Pew Research Center, shows that India leads in support for autocracy and military rule among surveyed nations. Indian right-wing accounts are among leading amplifiers of anti-Palestinian fake news and have used it to fan and escalate anti-Muslim violence in India. As Azad Essa traces in his book Hostile Homelands, despite its official stance supporting the 1975 UN resolution that concluded Zionism as racism, India continued maintaining relations with Israel through security and defense engagements. For example, India adopted Israeli security systems in response to the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Thereafter India bought its mass surveillance systems infrastructure – the Central Monitoring System – from Israel, which can operate without court orders and access any individual’s communication data. The BJP-led Hindutva regime (under whose fascist vision of ‘Hindu Rashtra (state)’ crimes against Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis is at an all time high) upgraded this relation to a ‘strategic partnership’ following Modi’s 2017 Israel visit where the two parties signed a defense deal worth 2 billion USD. This deal included the Israeli spyware Pegasus, that the government used to arrest journalists, government critics, students, especially Dalit and Muslim organisers and throttle political opposition. India is now the top arms buyer from Israel, and our taxes fund Hermes 900 drones manufactured by the Adani Elbit UAV Complex (the first facility in India and outside Israel to manufacture this drone) which Israel uses to massacre Palestinians. Israeli drones ‘field-tested’ on Palestinians are imported to be used on Kashmiris, thwart Adivasi movements in Bastar, and are being used against the ongoing Farmers’ protest.

Much like Israel, the Indian state is a settler-colonial state occupying Kashmir. The abrogation of article 370 in Kashmir in 2019 that catapulted the facilitation of Indian citizens settling in Kashmir is starkly similar to Israeli settler-colonial policies. Kashmir has thus had a long history of what Ather Zia calls ‘affective solidarity’ with Palestine embodied through various ways of resisting whereby the Palestinian struggle is ‘inspirational, cathartic’ to Kashmiris. Following the article 370 abrogation, Palestine-Kashmir solidarity strengthened with the BDS movement’s call for solidarity for Kashmir. Pro-Palestine protests in Kashmir continue to be repressed, a history that goes back to 2014 where amidst chants of ‘Save Gaza’ and ‘Go India, Go Back’, the Indian Armed Forces shot at young boys who were stone pelting, killing a 14 year-old.

We also stand with the workers of India who have made their solidarity to the Palestinian cause clear – the water transport workers who have refused to aid the shipment of arms to Israel on 14/02/2024 as well as the major Indian trade unions who, on 09/11/2023, rejected the Indian government’s move to replace Palestinian workers with Indian workers in Israel. We extend our revolutionary solidarity to the workers of the world resisting the ongoing genocide. We stand with the students who have organised for Palestine and whose protests have been met with repression by several Indian universities. Indian academia continues to receive funding from and collaborates with Israel. We call for an immediate cessation of this act of enabling occupation. We call for a total academic boycott of the Zionist entity – no more enabling of the coloniser’s knowledge production, which is a tool for genocide. The Zionist regime continues to murder academics and destroy schools, universities and libraries. We recall and honour the memory of professor, writer and poet Refaat Alareer. We urge Indian academics to see how Zionism is directly connected to the Hindutva machinery that continues to imprison Indian scholars like Hany Babu, GN Saibaba among others and student organisers like Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, among others, arrested for being dissenting voices. Our universities have long been bastions of resistance and we should strengthen our solidarities in knowledge production with the people worldwide facing violence. We learn from and honour Palestinian resistance in every form and remember Rafeef Ziadeh’s words, ‘We Teach Life, Sir! 

Following the call for strike on 8th March we put out this statement and will be participating with various actions in individual and collective capacities in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We learn from and honour Palestinian resistance in every form and remember Rafeef Ziadeh’s words, ‘We Teach Life, Sir! Actions can range from actively engaging in the Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, raising awareness in-person and on media platforms, sending emails to government representatives to send aid to Gaza and push for permanent ceasefire, amplifying fundraisers, donating e-sims, and more. From Palestine to Sudan, Congo, Western Sahara, Kurdistan, Balochistan, Kashmir all the way to Haiti and Tigray—no one is free until everyone is free. We call for economic, academic, cultural and social boycott. We call upon organisers to honour the call for the strike by addressing and embracing the call for a free Palestine in their 8 March programs and events. We call for the end of patriarchal, capitalist, colonial regimes that oppress us. We demand immediate permanent ceasefire, end of the siege on Gaza, end to settler-colonial occupation and the dismantling of the Zionist state of Israel. We demand a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

Do make your support for the statement heard by posting on social media and handing out the handouts we have made here .

Do comment your organization’s name below to be added to the list of signatories.

Signed

Trans Queer Feminists in Solidarity with Palestine Feminists in Resistance, Kolkata  LGBT Academics collective, India COLLECTIVE, Delhi

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Rachel O'Donoghue

On March 6, the United Nations warned that a current conflict that has already killed and displaced millions of people risks triggering “the world’s worst hunger crisis.”

Some of the statement’s key points include:

“A staggering 14 million children are in desperate need of lifesaving assistance”

“Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake”

“Across the war-torn country, 18 million people are acutely food insecure and five million now face starvation”

“Restricted in their movements by ongoing violence and interference from warring parties and severely underfunded, humanitarian aid workers can barely help those in need”

“Humanitarian assistance was further disrupted after the authorities revoked permits for cross-border truck convoys”

Less than 24 hours later on March 7, the United Nations issued another warning:

“The situation is appalling. Every minute, every hour, it is getting worse”

“In the north, one in six children under the age of two is acutely malnourished…”

“We need to flood the market… with humanitarian goods as well as re-energize the private sector so commercial goods can enter to meet the need of civilians…”

“At the same time, humanitarian supplies via air or sea are ‘not a substitute for what we need to see arrive on land…’”

The first statement was about Sudan, a country that has been racked by a conflict that erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023.

According to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which placed Sudan at the top of its Emergency Watchlist last year, nearly 6 million people have been displaced, and more than half the population (24.8 million people) needs humanitarian aid, with 17.7 million people facing crisis-level or worse food insecurity.

The IRC has also stated that amid mass displacement and reports of mass killings, humanitarian access has been severely curtailed.

The second statement was about Gaza and the ongoing aid delivery problems that have affected the Strip as Israel battles Hamas to protect its citizens from harm.

As the United Nations makes clear in its statements, both Sudan and Gaza are facing a humanitarian catastrophe. However, the war in Sudan is impacting a much larger number of people and has gone on for much longer.

One might think that media organizations would think both crises were worthy of attention. After all, the UN statements were published mere hours apart and warned of similarly dire situations.

Alas, not so.

The Guardian and The New York Times, for example, both included details of the UN’s statement about Gaza in their coverage of what was variously described as a “humanitarian disaster” affecting millions of “besieged Palestinians.”

Likewise, both publications covered in depth the March 5 UN statement — signed by several UN rapporteurs — which, among other grotesque and unfounded allegations, accused Israel of “intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza…”

Yet, neither outlet dedicated any coverage to the UN’s statement about Sudan — not a single paragraph was printed about an impending catastrophe that would amount to “the world’s worst hunger crisis.”

[diabolicalworldwriter]

I don't talk much on tumblr anymore, I'm mostly active on Instagram and say a lot more there, but I needed to put this here because wherever I can say something it feels right that I should and I regret not being more vocal all along.

Over the last seven months I have seen mothers sobbing over what's left of their children, fathers begging for anything to get their families to safety, children desperately trying to prove their humanity to people around them so someone will care enough to help them stay alive. Starvation, bodies crushed under rubble, destroyed homes, ruined hospitals and malnourished animals. Devastating violence that never seems to end when it never should have started.

I am incredibly lucky. I am not there living through it. I can turn off my phone and look away - though it sickens me to do so. These people cannot. They are trapped there, begging for any and all aid, no matter how small. They live in overpopulated tents in the burning heat, they drink contaminated water because at least it's water, mothers deliver their babies without proper medical assistance and children undergo amputations without anesthesia.

This is a manmade atrocity. None of this needed to happen. The Israeli government and its allies - including the government of my own country, the USA - are intentionally causing this. They are bombing the civilians. They are blocking and destroying the aid. They are dehumanizing every person within Palestine and crying victim when we refuse to go along with them.

Over 40,000 civilians have been killed. The rest are severely traumatized, injured, sick, starving and dehydrated, living on the brink of destruction and begging, pleading for anyone to care.

Here's a document with a lot of different actions to help. Even if you don't do that, here's a site that you can go to and click daily and they'll donate to relief funds. You just click, that's it. Educate yourselves, talk about and amplify the voices of the Palestinian people, don't sit back in silence and let them keep suffering and dying.

Please. That could be your family. That could be you. Be grateful that it's not, and be compassionate because these are real people with real stories and they deserve so much better than the hell they've been given. The least we can give them is a chance to survive, to tell their stories, to make the world a better place for themselves than it has thus far been.

Thank you for reading. Free Palestine.

with any luck the doodle and tags will help a few more people see this and think about what's going on.

[fairandfatalasfair]

Why isn't desperately needed aid reaching Palestinians in Gaza?

"United Nations agencies and aid groups say the ongoing hostilities, the Israeli military's refusal to facilitate deliveries and the breakdown of order inside Gaza make it increasingly difficult to bring vital aid to much of the coastal enclave.

The World Food Program said Tuesday it has paused food deliveries to isolated northern Gaza, where the UN children’s agency says one in six children are acutely malnourished. A UN report in December found that a quarter of Gaza's 2.3 million people are starving. ... Hollingworth described the halt as a “temporary pause” and said the WFP was talking to “all the parties” to resume aid shipments. "We have to flood the area with assistance, if we’re going to mitigate and stop a famine,” he said."

"Once aid trucks enter Gaza, there's often not much further they can go. Israel has isolated northern Gaza since the opening days of the ground offensive in late October after ordering its population to flee to the south. Tens of thousands of people remained there, despite the flattening of entire neighborhoods and severe shortages of food and water.

Aid groups say the Israeli military often denies their requests to access northern Gaza, and that even when it is granted, little protection is provided.

The drive from southern Rafah to Gaza City, in the north, used to take around 45 minutes. It now takes several hours because of ongoing hostilities and roads that have been damaged, blocked or closed by the army."

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Footage shows scenes of the extent of the massive destruction in Hamad Town, in the Khan Yunis governate, in the southern Gaza Strip, resulting from the bombardment and purposeful destruction of local infrastructure by the Israali occupation army.]

[ 📸 A photograph published by WAFA News showing a Palestinian family performing Iftar after managing to scrape together enough food to break their fast during Ramadan in the south of Gaza after being displaced from the Jabalia Refugee Camp.]

[ 📈 A graphic showing the current death toll of 31'645 civilians killed and 73'676 others wounded as a result of the Zionist genocide in Gaza.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🚀🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

STARVATION AND DESTITUION DURING RAMADAN AS BOMBINGS CONTINUE ON DAY 163 OF ISRAEL'S ONGOING GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP

On the 163rd day of Israel's ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 9 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of 92 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, and wounding another 130 others over the previous 24-hours.

As the majority of the Arab world break their fasts in the evening with large, warm, family meals, many of the Palestinian families of the Gaza Strip have nothing for iftar, and are unable to break their fasts or instead rely on soups of herbs or feed their families rotting bread as a shortage in flour continues largely unabated.

The Zionist occupation army continues to prevent the entry of the vast majority of food aid being sent to Gaza via various Arab and Western countries, especially aid intended for the northern Gaza Strip as residents starve in the streets, picking through garbage and consuming rotting food and contaminated water.

Even in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, stripped of its usual Ramadan decorations, only a few food stalls remain open in the local market, selling kunafa stuffed with nuts at a sticker-shock price of 80 sheckels per kilogram, or roughly $10 per pound, well beyond the reach of starving families who've been without work for more than five months as Israel continues its bombing and shelling campaign across the Palestinian enclave, even as basic materials and fuel necessary for rebuilding the Strip are blocked from entry.

As 40yo Ahmed Al-Kayyal tells local news organization WAFA, "There is no taste to Ramadan in this dirty and bloody war, a war of extermination, with no food or drink."

Local resident, Jamal Al-Khatib, had similar sentiments, telling the Palestinian news agency, "There is no food at all, so how will we break our fast in Ramadan? How can we rejoice when there is no shelter, electricity, or water?"

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), one in three children in the Gaza Strip are now "acutely malnourished" as famine looms over the Palestinian population of the enclave.

"Malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels in the Gaza Strip due to the wide-reaching impacts of the war and ongoing restrictions on aid delivery," UNRWA shared in a post on the social media platform X.

"An immediate humanitarian ceasefire continues to provide the only chance to save children’s lives and end their suffering," the aid organization added.

Meanwhile, the bombing and shelling of civilian homes by the IOF continued relentlessly overnight, with a concentration of firepower on the central Gaza Strip.

In one example from last night's carnage, Zionist air forces bombed a civilian home belonging to the Thabet family in the Beshara neighborhood of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the tragic deaths of at least 11 civilians, with the majority of victims being women and children. An update on the massacre said the death toll in the bombing has since risen to 12, with a large number of wounded victims reported in the atrocity as well.

An additional Israeli airstrike targeting a civilian vehicle in the city of Al-Zahra, in the central Gaza Strip, resulted in the killing of two Palestinians and wounded another.

Similarly, an Israeli bombing of a residential home in the New Camp area of Al-Nuseirat, also in central Gaza, killed another six Palestinians and wounded at least 10 others.

Occupation warplanes also concentrated their firepower on various neighborhoods of Gaza City, ensuring the complete and utter destruction of the local infrastructure of the most developed city in the Gaza Strip, making the future of the city uncertain as the landscape becomes more and more uninhabitable.

In one example, Zionist fighter jets bombarded the Al-Manara building in the vicinity of the Ashlelon Mosque in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City, while occupation aircraft also bombed the Nabil building on Al-Jalaa Street.

Occupation warplanes also bombed a group of Palestinian civilians picking hibiscus plants in the east of Gaza, with Al-Shifa Medical Complex reporting the death of one of the victims and the wounding of five others as a result.

In the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation army launched a firebelt targeting a residential square in Al-Qarara, east of Khan Yunis, while occupation air forces bombarded a tract of agricultural land near the border with Egypt, which, although no casualties were reported in the bombing, the systematic destruction of agricultural lands in the Gaza Strip is helping to contribute to the enforced famine and starvation of the Palestinian population.

In another sickening atrocity, Zionist occupation forces in gunboats opened fire on the tents of displaced Palestinian families on the coast, west of Rafah, in the south of Gaza, killing a 19yo woman when two of the Zionist soldiers' live bullets entered her skull.

As a result of Israel's ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the endlessly rising death toll has now exceeded 31'645 Palestinians killed, more than 25'000 of which being women and children according to the United States Pentagon, with another 73'676 civilians wounded since the beginning of the current round of Israeli aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[stuckinapril]

I’m actually so physically sick reading this. These Palestinians were malnourished, sick, frail. They just wanted sustenance for themselves, for their children. And Israel knows this. It knows it has created a fish bowl where people are starving every day, where they’re so desperate for the smallest morsel of food that they’re willing to go anywhere to get it. So they deliberately—on purpose—planted aid in a certain location, stayed waiting while Palestinians all rushed over for this promise of food, and then they opened fire. Now 104 Palestinians are dead, and the footage of this is so heartbreaking it actually made me wanna throw up. I am so incredibly tired of Arab lives being dispensable, or fodder for shock value videos. And with the UN having cut entry for aid trucks, I don’t know what the surviving Palestinians will do. It’s hard living with the fact that people care for Arab people so little, they’re willing to watch this and do nothing. Why are we not human to you?

[catdotjpeg]

Sunday evening marked the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza amid severe foot shortages continue. Instead of celebrating, Palestinians in Gaza are entering the month with heavy hearts.  The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Ramadan in the Gaza Strip this year is “unlike the holy month in previous years or anywhere else in the world,” especially in light of the destruction of all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip, including dozens of mosques. Ramadan has arrived as “Palestinians have been suffering from the lack and scarcity of food and drinkable water for more than five consecutive months,” it continued.  Half of the besieged enclave population crammed into the southern city of Rafah, many living in plastic tents and facing severe shortages of food. 

“Everyone we’ve known has lost a family member or loved one or someone they knew from their networks, which makes it very difficult for people. People used to prepare and start the first day of Ramadan with festivities, decorations, lights, and lanterns in the streets, markets, and mosques; the vast majority of those are now destroyed, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud from Rafah. Ramadan is usually filled with family feasts; however, Israel’s ongoing siege has rendered this almost impossible for those living in Gaza. Even where food is available, there is little beyond canned goods, and the prices are too high for many. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, says Ramadan is here as “displacement continues, and fear and anxiety prevail amid threats of a military operation on Rafah,” Gaza’s southernmost point.

“This month should bring a ceasefire for those who have suffered the most. They need respite and peace of mind. It’s long overdue,” he continued on X. Sabah al-Hendi, who was shopping for food on Sunday in the southernmost city of Rafah, told AP: “You don’t see anyone with joy in their eyes. Every family is sad. Every family has a martyr.” Meanwhile, in the north of Gaza, Palestinians continue to face famine, as severe food and aid shortages continue.

On Monday afternoon, two more children in northern Gaza died of starvation, reported Al Jazeera, citing local sources, bringing the total number to 27, most of them children who have starved to death. At least one in six children in the north are malnourished, according to the World Health Organization.  “I came here to buy but I can’t find anything to buy,” Sufian al-Yazji, a displaced Palestinian in the north, told Al Jazeera.

“There’s nothing, no dates or milk, or anything. One can’t find anything for their children. All these canned goods are full of germs that infect the stomach. We need vegetables and fruits to feed our children because they’ve weakened and will die from hunger.”  Over 2,000 medical staff in northern Gaza are exhausted and struggling to keep up under immense physical pressure with nothing to eat as they work around the clock, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health.  As a result of the lack of healthcare, bombing, starvation, and dehydration, the enclave’s elderly population are dying at an alarmingly high rate.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement on Sunday that its team in Gaza “is recording nearly daily deaths among the elderly due to Israel’s systematic and pervasive crimes of starvation and treatment deprivation in the Gaza Strip, especially in Gaza City and the Strip’s northern regions.” “The majority of these cases do not reach hospitals, which are only partially operational in northern Gaza because of the difficulty of access given the ongoing Israeli military attacks. Consequently, after dying at home, the elderly are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries,” Euro-Med said. 

-- From "‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 157" by Leila Warah for Mondoweiss, 11 Mar 2024

[magz]

March 5 to March 7, 2024 update from Let's Talk Palestine (instagram channel)

March 5

• 97 Palestinians killed, 123 injured in Gaza in past 24 hours

• Israeli forces recapture 2 Palestinian women who were previously released in the November hostage exchange deal — total 11 Palestinian women and children recaptured since their release, a clear violation of the agreement

​​• WHO: 1 in 6 children under age of 2 is “acutely malnourished” in north Gaza; 16+ kids killed by starvation in past week. Israel continues to block entry & distribution of aid + attacks aid convoys & aid seekers attempting to receive what little aid reaches the north

• Journalist Mohamad Salama killed by Israeli strike in Deir el-Balah; 133 journalists killed in Gaza since Oct 7

​​🇦🇺 Australian lawyers refer Australian PM to ICC for “accessory to genocide in Gaza”, citing the halt of UNRWA funds, military aid to Israel & deploying Australian troops

• Israeli airstrike on home in southern Lebanon killed a Hezbollah fighter and 2 family members amid rising Hezbollah-Israel tensions

March 6

• 86 Palestinians killed, 113 injured in Gaza in past 24 hours

🇺🇳 UNRWA accuses Israel of detaining & torturing its staff to extract false confessions on ties to Hamas. The unpublished UNRWA report details multiple incidents of abuse incl. torture, sexual abuse & deprivation of basic needs

🇺🇸 Washington Post: US quietly approved 100+ foreign military sales to Israel since Oct 7, disclosed in a classified congress briefing. The sales bypassed public scrutiny as their value didn’t meet the threshold requiring congressional notification, yet in total they amount to a “massive transfer of firepower”

• 20 Palestinians killed by starvation from malnutrition & dehydration, while Israel continues to block aid + attacking aid seekers, injuring 8 in Gaza City

🇨🇦 Canada was meant to announce its reinstatement of funding to UNRWA on March 6, but last minute decided to cancel the press conference. Leaving this decision unconfirmed. Canada was originally planned to announce they would resume UNRWA funding with a scheduled payment of $25m for April. Canada was one of the first countries that followed the US in halting funding due to the unsupported allegations made by Israel in January.

March 7

🚨 SOUTH AFRICA URGENT ICJ REQUEST

South Africa has once again requested the ICJ for additional emergency measures against Israel, urging the Court “to do what is within its power to save Palestinians in Gaza from genocidal starvation.” Its previous request was denied by the Court.

This was prompted by the harrowing deterioration in Gaza since the original measures in January. Using powerful language, South Africa highlights to the Court that “Palestinian children are starving to death as a direct result of the deliberate acts and omissions of Israel.”

Underscoring that Israel is “massacring desperate, starving Palestinians seeking to obtain food for their slowly dying children,” referencing the ‘flour massacre’ that killed 118 Palestinians and injured 760.

South Africa concluded by saying it “fears this Application may be the last opportunity that this Court shall have to save the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

Read the full request here:

https://tinyurl.com/mmy9rvfx

March 7, part 2

• 83 Palestinians killed, 143 injured in Gaza in past 24 hours

🇳🇴 Norway issues official advice against any trade or business with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which risks contributing to violations of international law. This was prompted by Israel’s recent approval of permits for 3,500 new units in 3 settlements in the West Bank, the first since Oct 7. This has faced global condemnation incl. from close allies like the US & Germany + many Arab countries

• 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffer from dehydration, malnutrition & lack of healthcare; 5,000 women give birth every month in Gaza in extremely unsafe & unhealthy conditions

🇪🇺 EU Foreign Minister says they will probe into Israel’s compliance with human rights obligations stipulated in EU-Israel trade deal following requests from Spain & Ireland

🇪🇸🇶🇦 Spain to send $22 million + $25 million from Qatar in extra funding to UNRWA

• Israel granted access to only 6/24 aid operations to north Gaza last month

[capybaracorn]

In pictures: ‘Catastrophic’ hunger in Gaza

(13th of March 2024)

As Israel's severe restrictions on aid entering Gaza drain essential supplies, displaced Palestinians told CNN they are struggling to feed their children.

Starving mothers are unable to produce enough milk to breastfeed their babies, doctors say. Parents arrive at overwhelmed health facilities begging for infant formula.

Gaza's entire population of roughly 2.2 million people are facing "crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity," according to the World Food Programme, which warns child malnutrition in the enclave is "higher than anywhere in the world." Two newborn baby girls died due to malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza on Monday, Dr. Samer Libd, a pediatrician at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, told CNN. 

Israel insists there is "no limit" on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime on aid trucks has meant that only a tiny fraction of the amount of food and other supplies that used to enter Gaza daily before the war is getting in now. Last month, at least 118 people were killed while trying to access food aid in Gaza City in one of the worst single tragedies of the war so far.

Jamie McGoldrick, a UN humanitarian coordinator who returned from a two-day trip to Gaza, warned that hunger there has reached "catastrophic levels." Adele Khodr, regional director of the UNICEF office in the Middle East and North Africa, said "people are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life."

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the militant group Hamas killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 others in southern Israel on October 7.

Fadi Al-Zanat, 6, is treated at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on March 10. He was suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration, according to the health ministry in Gaza. Mousa Salem/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Palestinians transport bags of flour on the back of trucks as humanitarian aid arrives in Gaza City on March 6. AFP/Getty Images

Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at a UN relief center in Rafah on January 28. AFP/Getty Images

A Palestinian fisherman holds a crab from a modest catch in Gaza City on February 20. Omar Qattaa/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Palestinians wait to receive food at a refugee camp in Rafah on January 27. Saher Alghorra/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

A worker rests as displaced Palestinians receive food aid in Rafah on January 28. AFP/Getty Images

Palestinian boy Ahmed Qannan, suffering from malnutrition, receives treatment at a health-care center in Rafah on March 4. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Men salvage bread that was found amid the rubble of a family's home in Rafah on March 3. Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

A member of the US Air Force prepares to release humanitarian aid pallets of packaged food over Gaza on March 5. US Air Force/UPI/Shutterstock

A child in Gaza joins others with empty containers as they wait to receive hot food at a charitable distribution site in Gaza City on February 26. Omar Qattaa/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Humanitarian aid packages are dropped from the air by Jordanian army planes in Gaza City on March 1. Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Yazan al-Kafarneh, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy who was suffering from malnourishment, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Rafah on February 28. He later died. Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Palestinians with empty containers wait in front of boilers to receive hot food that was distributed in Gaza City on February 26. Omar Qattaa/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A Palestinian child crouches by her food container after a distribution in Rafah on January 25. Abed Zagout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A funeral prayer is performed for Yazan al-Kafarneh, the 10-year-old Palestinian child who died of malnutrition, on March 4. Rabie Abu Noqaira/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Because of a lack of flour, Palestinians process animal fodder to make bread in Gaza City on January 24. Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Children suffering from malnutrition receive treatment at a health-care center in Rafah on March 5. Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Palestinians line up for food distribution in Rafah on February 1. Abed Zagout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Vendors selling vegetables wait for customers at their roadside stall in Rafah on February 26. Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

An Egyptian truck driver gathers rope used for covering a tarp while humanitarian aid is inspected in Israel before crossing into Gaza on December 22. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

A child waves at a displacement camp in Gaza on January 27. Saher Alghorra/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

Displaced Palestinians relocate in Gaza City on March 3. Yasser Qudih/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

People in a crowd struggle to buy bread from a bakery in Rafah on February 18. Fatima Shbair/AP

[tieflingkisser]

Over 2/3 of Jewish Israelis oppose humanitarian aid to Palestinians starving in Gaza 

This is a shocking data point. The Israeli Democracy Institute released a survey this week showing that over 2/3 of Jewish Israelis ��� 68% that is – opposed “the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents at this time.”  It gets even worse – the survey lowered the bar to exclude any possible opposition to either UNRWA (which Israel has been inciting against) or the Hamas authorities (which Israel considers terrorists). To no avail. Over two-thirds still oppose humanitarian help “via international bodies that are not linked to Hamas or to UNRWA… A majority of Jewish respondents (68%) oppose the transfer of humanitarian aid even under these conditions,” the survey notes. The numbers are worse when it comes to right-wing Jewish Israelis, where the opposition is at 80% – four out of five. And consider that about 2/3 of Israeli voters are considered right-wing. One really has to pause here. We are in a situation where Palestinians in Gaza are starving, people are consuming animal feed in their desperation. The week the UN’s World Food Programme reported people in Gaza are “already dying from hunger-related causes,” and a UNICEF nutrition screening in north Gaza found that 1 in 6 children under two years old are acutely malnourished. Israelis are not completely ignorant of this. They are supporting genocide by an overwhelming majority.