Israel has tried for years to balance its interests with those of innocent Palestinians. Its maritime blockade did not stop Gaza from being self-sufficient in fruits and vegetables, with enough left over to potentially export.. Despite the war, three-quarters of greenhouse acres were still available as of Feb. 15, according to a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, which has the latest available data. Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) indicates that bakeries can still provide “over 2 million breads, rolls, and pita breads a day.”
Since the war began, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have engaged in what West Point Urban Warfare Studies Chairman John Spencer described as “a remarkable, historic new standard” for wartime treatment of civilians, resulting in a civilian-to-combatant mortality ratio that is “historically low for modern urban warfare.” For example, Israel regularly provides warnings of impending attacks, assists with evacuations, and even stops its attacks on a daily basis to allow humanitarian aid to arrive.
Despite the recent tragedy, the IDF tries to ensure that Gazans don’t starve throughout the war.
According to this United Nations chart, at least half the farms in Gaza are still going, their farm exports are still reaching their foreign customers, three quarters of the greenhouses are still producing, the bakeries are still baking, yet somehow, everyone in Gaza is starving to death.
That is one funny way of running a man-made famine.
The Columbia scholars didn't deny that there was hardship in some areas, but they did point out what was happening in areas where people really didn't have enough to eat and needed to rely on food aid:
Hamas is stealing all the food.
According to Columbia's Awi Federgruen and Ran Kivetz:
Hamas, which has been hoarding food and stealing from Gazans, is the root cause of Gazans’ suffering. As Congressman Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, stated in a CNN interview: “Hamas has a long history of stealing aid, and needs to stop that in the interest of the people that they purport to represent.”
How do you starve when you're still exporting food?
There's also this aid as well on top of what the Gazans already have:
Despite the recent tragedy, the IDF tries to ensure that Gazans don’t starve throughout the war. COGAT data show that 290,000 tons of food and beverages have been delivered to Gaza since October — recently as many as 200 truckloads a day. Full distribution of these supplies would deliver about 1.82 pounds of food daily for each of the 2 million people in Gaza (145 kg per person, during 175 days of war). Based on FAO estimates of the average daily consumption in Asia and Africa (where Gaza is situated), this alone would be enough to supply 50% of Gazans’ daily consumption needs – on top of the food they continue to produce themselves.
That's a lot of free food -- and hungry Gazans don't get enough
bttt
” “Hamas has a long history of stealing aid, and needs to stop that in the interest of the people that they purport to represent.””
The only way Hamass can be reformed is by being wiped out.
The problem is that the American Thinker article makes statements with links to back them up, but unfortunately the links sometimes fail to do so. Perhaps the most egregious is According to this United Nations chart (link), at least half the farms in Gaza are still going, their farm exports are still reaching their foreign customers, three quarters of the greenhouses are still producing, the bakeries are still baking...
Unfortunately, the pdf @ the link shows no such thing, and leaves a LOT more unanswered than answered.
That doesn't mean there is famine in Gaza: There is plenty of information, both cited in the article and elsewhere, to refute that idea. The most obvious being that few Gazans look starved... But I'll never understand why the right is so prone to presenting intermediate conclusions so easily blown up, usually based on "evidence" shown to be incomplete or irrelevant, etc., thereby discrediting the presenter when they already have plenty of good information to work with. :-(