[dlubarov]

GHF has ramped up to distributing about 3 million meals per day now. Reportedly 58 Gazans have starved during the conflict [1], implying an FMR of something like 0.0005. Any starvation is awful, but it's nothing compared to global averages. There are actual famines (with FMR over 2) in other parts of the world, but few people seem interested in those.

There's certainly more work to be done to fix food insecurity in Gaza, but aid distribution challenges are hardly evidence of genocidal intent.

[1] https://imemc.org/article/child-dies-of-malnutrition-amid-wo...

[grafmax]

The aid distribution “challenges” are because Israel is blocking all aid except that which comes from the GHF itself. Israel has created the conditions for starvation by destroying agriculture and blocking all aid except for four GHF aid stations. The GHF aid stations weaponize starvation by concentrating Gazans near the Egyptian border and providing a token nod to humanitarian concerns (Israel’s policy throughout this genocide) - never mind the regular shootings that take place at these stations. Prior to October 2023 there were 400 aid stations in Gaza requiring 500 truckloads of aid [1]. Today there are four GHF stations run by military contractors.

The insufficiency of these aid points is also evidenced by the people dying of starvation in this hell hole. Low numbers of people dying from starvation indicates its early stages. It takes a while for people to starve to death. Typically a population suffers malnutrition for some period before the death toll rapidly balloons. The famine deaths, far from pointing to the absence of famine, indicate we are in the early stages of mass starvation brought on by Israel’s policy.

Do not forget that the Israel government created this famine and is blocking all aid except for the aid to can weaponize. And starvation is just one of the many weapons it is using to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

[1] https://www.fcnl.org/updates/2025-06/gaza-humanitarian-found...

[dlubarov]

It's not a perfect solution, but at least GHF is distributing aid directly to civilians who receive it for free, unlike the old system.

> Prior to October 2023 there were 400 aid stations in Gaza requiring 500 truckloads of aid

Why are you focused on these particular metrics? Meals or calories distributed per day seems more relevant.

> Typically a population suffers malnutrition for some period before the death toll rapidly balloons.

For how long of a period? It was 32 starvations as of 04/01/2024, and another 26 since then. Nothing in the data seems to suggest an impending spike.

> the Israel government created this famine

There is food insecurity, not a famine. FMR would need to increase by something like 4,000x to meet part of the definition of a famine.

[grafmax]

Starvation shows every sign of worsening under this system. Rather than aiming to resolve mass starvation (manufactured by Israel’s policies in the first place), it should be seen for what it is, part of Israel government’s very consistent policy of paying humanitarian lip service and offering token humanitarian gestures while intensifying genocide.

The latest IPC snapshot from May 12 starts that while the entire population is facing acute food insecurity, 470,000 are facing catastrophic levels using the IPC classification. It alerted that under current conditions of military action and blockade a full blown famine under its classification would be occurring now, during the current period (May 11-September) [1].

At the end of May the four GHF stations were opened. However the amount of food supplied could only conceivably feed half of Gaza’s population if distributed equally [2]. Many people are already starving and need much more than 1.5 meals a day; besides, logistically this kind of food distribution is impossible for many reasons not the least of which is the mass destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure by Israel’s military.

As of the IPC report, starvation was worst in northern Gaza and in Rafah (in the south). The GHF aid stations are located in the south; in Rafah the military operations have only worsened food scarcity there.

It is quite telling that people every day attend these stations despite the horrible killings of civilians by the military contractors running them. That in itself shows the degree of starvation the Gaza people are experiencing.

[1] https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/...

[2] https://www.ajc.org/news/humanitarian-aid-in-gaza-whats-real...

[dlubarov]

3 million meals a day doesn't seem like a token gesture. It may not be enough, but GHF has been operating for less than a month and is still ramping up. You can criticize their implementation, but I don't see how you can deny that it's a serious effort to address food insecurity.

We've been hearing "risk of famine" almost since the start of the conflict, when the reality is 58 deaths linked to malnutrition during the conflict. Nigera has had over a million starvations in the same period, and even that isn't a famine. There's a real food insecurity problem, but we shouldn't call it something it's not.

[grafmax]

Now you’re dismissing all food scarcity concerns, including ignoring the recent intensification of food scarcity under the blockade, because supposedly a subset of humanitarian concerns expressed earlier in the genocide were overstated. But we have strong reason to believe famine is occurring today, thanks to the IPC reports, our most thorough picture of the food scarcity situation in Gaza, which show a consistently worsening picture, now tipping into famine thanks to the blockade.

To properly evaluate the GHF system we must note:

1) Israeli policy is to provide humanitarian gestures while perpetuating genocide.

2) Israeli policy manufactured this famine in the first place.

3) The GHF system is widely seen as inadequate and inhumane among humanitarian organizations. The inadequacy is corroborated by the IPC reports as I described in my last reply to you, providing token aid in the south that does not address the mass starvation in the north or Rafah.

4) Israeli military are continuing to block all aid except for the GHF stations under the control of the war machine.

5) GHF aid stations are the sites of frequent killings of starving civilians.

6) Mass starvation is occurring (again, we know this from our most thorough picture, the IPC reports).

Thus the purpose of the four GHF stations cannot be to significantly address starvation.

You claim that the stations will ramp up enough to stop the famine that Israel policy has created. However if we soberly assess the situation we must conclude that that scenario would be utterly inconsistent with the facts we have available.

[dlubarov]

I'm not dismissing food scarcity concerns, just asking that we use accurate language to describe them. You seem to maintain that a famine is occurring or probably occurring. I pointed out that starvations would need to be something like 4,000x higher for that to be true. Is your position that starvations are under-reported by some massive factor like 4,000x? Or that we should drastically relax the threshold of what we consider a famine in order to make the Gaza situation fit?

[tdeck]

Let's not forget that Israel admitted to funding the gangs in Gaza that are looting aid

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250607-israel-admi...