If you are to believe the international media, there is a devastating famine in Gaza. But despite all the predictions that “famine” is just about to begin, it still hasn’t arrived in Gaza — it keeps receding into the distance, a propagandistic will-o’-the-wisp dreamed up by Hamas to blacken Israel’s image. And that charge of famine” has led to another charge — that newborn babies in Gaza have little chance of surviving, both because of this “famine” and because of the current state of medical care in wartime, for which, we are supposed to understand, Israel is entirely to blame. Hamas’ turning of many hospitals into outposts for its men and weapons and rocket launchers, as well as command-and-control centers – all of which makes them legitimate targets for the IDF, is not mentioned. More on these charges of “babies dying in Gaza of malnutrition” can be found here: “Lies from @SkyNews: ‘Newborn babies now have LITTLE CHANCE OF SURVIVAL in Gaza’ because of starvation. The actual odds: >99.96% according to Hamas health ministry,” Elder of Ziyon, July 4, 2024:
Sky News not only ignores the fact that the UN admits there is no famine in Gaza, but it doubles down, with a headline saying, “Newborn babies now have little chance of survival in Gaza, hospital director warns.”
The first words of of the video report has the narrator saying, “The chances of a newborn baby surviving in Gaza now are not good.”
We are then treated to scenes of babies and children with their ribcages visible.
The report is libelous in two ways: One is that it pretends that children who have other medical issues are dying from starvation.
The “star” of this video is a dead baby: “The body of a baby that didn’t pull through lies in a hospital incubator, awaiting burial. She was born two months premature because her mother was so exhausted. Too soon for her parents to even name her. Her tiny body is now wrapped in a green shroud.”
If she didn’t live long enough to be named, then chances are she died soon after birth from complications of childbirth, not malnutrition. What parent wouldn’t name a child who is alive for days?
We’ve seen this before. The BBC reported that an otherwise healthy boy starved to death but didn’t mention (until forced to correct) that he happened to have cerebral palsy.
This Sky report shows a child, Amjad, that it says is starving – but then mentions that he was one of the children who Israel evacuated to send to hospitals abroad. CNN showed Amjad and his older brother Ahmed, who was also evacuated, and didn’t mention anything about starvation; his brother Ahmed looks well-fed.
The Washington Post tells us the truth: Ahmed suffers from testicular cancer and Amjad has a kidney condition which is associated with protein energy wasting.
This is what Sky News isn’t telling you about the “starving children.” Why tell the truth when you have video showing sick, crying kids?
Now, let’s look at the central claim: that the chances for a child born in Gaza today to survive are low because of malnutrition.
According to the Hamas-run health ministry, there were 28 deaths from malnutrition as of March 31 and 34 today. (They didn’t publish any statistics before March.) That means that even according to the highly unreliable ministry, there have been six deaths from starvation in three months. (We don’t know how many of them were newborns.)
About 16,000 babies have been born in Gaza in those three months. This means that the chances of a baby starving to death in Gaza, today, is four in ten thousand at the very most….
Keep that figure of infant mortality in mind, based on the number of infant deaths Hamas itself has provided: a total of 28 infant deaths from malnutrition, from the beginning of the war up to March 31, and only six more in the three months between the beginning of April and the beginning of July.
The total number of babies born in Gaza in the last three months (April 1-July 1) is 16,000. According to Hamas, in that time, six newborn babies in Gaza have died of malnutrition. But according to the CIA, the mortality rate for newborns in Gaza was 1.5%. This means a total of 240 babies do not survive to their first birthday. Yet here we have Hamas itself declaring that of the 16,000 babies born in Gaza, between April and July, only six died of malnutrition. In other words, 99.96% of the babies in Gaza who did not survive to their first year died not of malnutrition, but of diseases, including a high proportion of congenital illnesses, that are the result of the large number of intra-family (“cousin”) marriages.
Surely these statistics ought to be made widely known, to counter the claim that “all over Gaza babies are dying of malnutrition.” They are not. Only .04% of the babies born in Gaza die of malnutrition, according to Hamas’ own figures.
Frances says
I was just listening to a woman who escaped Saudi Arabia and how all her friends and cousins married first cousins, it is so little discussed here in the West. As far as I can remember first cousin marriage is legal in the UK so I am sure it is going on a lot. Not sure why they do that?
Hugh Fitzgerald says
It’s a matter of trust. You can trust relatives, or so it is believed. And you can’t trust others – which says a lot about Muslim societies.
somehistory says
Anyone looking at any of the photos and videos coming from there can see many adults overloaded with food. Bulging abdomens, stomachs pouring over pant tops, chests supported by the stomachs.
If a famine existed in Gaza, eight months of going hungry would have most if not all, looking thinner.
hamas has been reported as taking all of the food and then selling it to the people who need it.
So, if the babies are hungry, it isn’t because Israel is doing wrong by fighting the terrorists.
And, furthermore, there are hungry/malnourished children in America. And that is likely a fact in every nation on earth.
Mike says
There are hundreds of thousands of people, including children, who are experiencing real famine in Sudan and Somalia.
Moreover, there are real genocides going on right now in Nigeria, Mozambique, and a number of other African countries, including in the aforementioned Sudan anf Somalia, mainly due to Islamist militia groups), but we don’t hear much about that, compared to the Palestinian Arabs.
James Lincoln says
The real genocides do not fit the favored narrative, Mike.
somehistory says
Yes, Mike, and mozlums with their islam are at the bottom of all of it. In one way or another. Usually more ways than one.
abu taleb says
Israel evacuated the child Amjad and other children to hospitals abroad. Do you think Hamas or other Islam terrorists will do the same? I bet they won’t.
Have you ever heard some Islamic organizations gives help to non muslims? Probably there are a very few occasions, but compared to what Christian organizations have done to help muslims, what Islamic organizations do is relatively nothing. Once a Islamic organization in my country gave some food donation, but they openly refused to give to non muslims.
From the comparison, it is clear who is the good guy.
John says
It is part of the Islamic agenda to fight the propaganda war when the military war will not succeed! Lying to infidels is an old tradition!
Troybeam says
Not at all, lies told to have monies and supplies sent so
Hamas can get more supplies because the people support
them and sacrifice themselves for Hamas’s chance to advance
their cause to destroy Israel and the movement globally.
OLD GUY says
World wide foreign aid to Palestine is a cash cow for Hamas.
James Lincoln says
The BBC is about as truthful as Sleepy Joe.