[bhouston]

Was this decision made in Redmond or in Israel? Microsoft has offices in Israel and these offices are likely responsible for things happening in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel is currently at "war" with Gaza and having Israeli employees of Microsoft having the ability to disable anyone's account calling civilians in Gaza is pretty horrible.

Is Microsoft via Skype and Hotmail participating in what Israel's leaders are call the "complete siege"? https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-ministe...

No appeal and no explanation available does suggest to me the shutdown orders may have come from Israeli security services or the Israeli army.

[invalidname]

It has R&D centers and local business centers. Skype is not in Israel and there's no reason for a VoIP solution to route through a country local facility. The "complete siege" ended ages ago. Israel provides power, food etc.

[gl-prod]

I don't know about power and food since I have friends in the North who still don't have access.

[Fatnino]

How far is Israel expected to deliver the food? Right to everyone's door?

A seige means the borders are closed. The current situation, for at least 6 months now is that Israel is letting food trucks through the border, more and more every day.

A problem exists for that last mile inside Gaza where no one wants to distribute it because militants will straight up beat truck drivers with sticks to steal the trucks and the food.

You'd think the UN would step in and do something but so far they mostly just sit on their hands bleating.

So to summarize: there are huge piles of food just inside the Gaza border that are not being distributed efficiently/at all.

I also want to point out that it's not in Israel's best interest for there to be food shortages inside Gaza. The first people who will be starved are the hostages, so Israel wants to flood the strip with so much food that some trickles down to her citizens held there against their will.

[dunekid]

>Right to everyone's door?

There are not much of them doors left anyway.

>A seige means the borders are closed.

Yes, practically for close to two decades now. Sea, Air and Land.

[adr1an]

Drone and bomb attacks are delivered to doors without a problem, so... Yes.

[gl-prod]

I don't think Israel cares that much about the hostages (the constant indiscriminate bombing might give a hint). But if that's true and the hostages are in the hands of Hamas, then Israel would provide food and supplies to Hamas, right?

Where are your sources about "huge piles of food just inside the Gaza border?"

[Fatnino]

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/15/nx-s1-5035998/gaza-israel-foo...

[dunekid]

Anyway, there are a lot of reasons, one is this :

> Aid groups say coordinating their movements with the Israeli military inside Gaza remains a complicated and time-consuming process, sometimes requiring hours to coordinate safe access to the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom border. And despite these efforts, Israeli airstrikes have hit aid workers on multiple occasions.

I haven't found anything on the investigation that is supposedly investigating the WCK workers murder. Unless the people who did that receives exemplary punishment, what sort of NGOs could distribute that aid? And ITF forces are still on the ground, and air.

[bhouston]

It isn't just Skype, their hotmail accounts were also disabled. Many local countries definitely do have authority over services provided in their countries.

I would guess these shutdown orders came from Israeli security services and then were routed though Microsoft Israel to be enacted.

> The "complete siege" ended ages ago. Israel provides power, food etc.

Sure, whatever you say.

[hedora]

Quick fact check: According to the UN, there is now a famine in Gaza because of Israel's actions:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/10/is-there-famine-in-...

> “Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 independent UN experts, including the special rapporteur on the right to food and the special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement on Tuesday.

...

Three conditions must exist to determine there is famine:

- At least 20 percent of the population in the area faces extreme levels of hunger;

- 30 percent of the children in the area are too thin for their height; and

- The death rate has doubled from the average, surpassing two deaths per 10,000 daily for adults and four deaths per 10,000 daily for children.

[cmilton]

Did the 10 independent experts provide any evidence for these new claims? I can not find any in the article you have provided. I believe you should confine your assertion to “high risk” as the article states.

FTA: “ In its most recent evaluation, carried out last month, the IPC said Gaza remains at “high risk” of famine as the war continues and aid access is restricted, but stopped short of classifying conditions as a famine.

[exe34]

> Did the 10 independent experts provide any evidence for these new claims? I

somehow they can't get their people in, because big bad Israel, and at the same time, they seem to know exactly what's going on on the ground, and can make such claims. gaza seems to be the land of logical contradictions...

[EvgeniyZh]

Quick check: famine review committee was unable to find evidence of famine in Gaza [1]

[1] https://reliefweb.int/attachments/c6421cb7-c936-4145-af54-b7...

[shakes_mcjunkie]

Pretty disengenious summary on your part. From the report you linked:

> Firstly, all stakeholders who use the IPC for high-level decision-making must understand that whether a Famine classification is confirmed does not in any manner change the fact that extreme human suffering is without a doubt currently ongoing in the Gaza Strip and does not in any manner change the immediate humanitarian imperative to address this civilian suffering by enabling complete, safe, unhindered, and sustained humanitarian access into and throughout the Gaza Strip, including through ceasing hostilities. All actors should not wait until a Famine classification for the current period is made to act accordingly.

> Secondly, the FRC would like to highlight that the very fact that we are unable to endorse (or not) FEWS NET’s analysis is driven by the lack of essential up to date data on human well-being in Northern Gaza, and Gaza at large. Thus, the FRC strongly requests all parties to enable humanitarian access in general, and specifically to provide a window of opportunity to conduct field surveys in Northern Gaza to have more solid evidence of the food consumption, nutrition, and mortality situation.

[EvgeniyZh]

What's disengenious about? They didn't find evidence of famine, and thus the claim "According to the UN, there is now a famine in Gaza" is factual wrong. The sprinkling of ideology on top of this fact doesn't change it.

[monocasa]

That statement was from less than a year ago.

[invalidname]

The whole war has been going for 9 months. Things change fast. It was a stupid statement by a stupid/evil government, but facts have changed quite a while back in relative terms.

[monocasa]

You said "[t]he "complete siege" ended ages ago."

This specific statement was less than a year ago, from the IDF, about instituting a complete siege.

[invalidname]

People use the word "ages" to indicate a significant amount of time. In the context of this war it's correct. This obviously didn't refer to the literal meaning of ages when discussing a 9 month war.

It seems to me you're trying to nitpick on a minor choice of words instead of the substance of what I said.

[monocasa]

Power is still disabled in large swaths of gaza.

Food is still scarce, with far fewer trucks let in versus pre invasion (which was 500 trucks a day), which was already calibrated according to Israeli officials to be "the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis". https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wikileaks-israel-intentionally-...

[readthenotes1]

Why did you put quotes around "war"? It may be other things, but it's definitely not just a "reaction", "retaliation", or "police action"...

[axxto]

> Why did you put quotes around "war"? It may be other things

I think you answered yourself right there