🧵 Famine in Gaza. This is my read on the situation. Important to understand what's happening. Start with that the IPC, a UN- backed system, is responsible for declaring a famine. The criteria for that are strict, as follows: /1
IPC Phase 5 “Famine” requires all three thresholds: 1. ≥20% of households in extreme food gap 2. ≥30% acute malnutrition (wasting) 3. ≥2 deaths per 10,000 people per day /2
Gaza, quite obviously, meets that first criteria in many areas. People are obviously struggling, but it was not meeting the second criteria of 30%. My understanding is that the IPC dropped it from 30% to 20% which many believe they did to accuse Israel of starving Gaza. /3
But the far more interesting criteria is criteria 3. In order for all of Gaza to be in famine, there would need to be at least 2 deaths per 10,000 people per day. So in perspective that would be about 13,000 deaths per month. /4
Gaza is objectively nowhere NEAR that, even Hamas are claiming in their most recent numbers (which should be taken with skepticism) that ~260 in TOTAL have died of malnutrition. So what can the IPC and UN do to get around this massive disparity? /5
To start with, they've declared famine only in Gaza City. A tiny area only about 3 miles by 6 miles. By doing this, they'd only need to see 3000 - 4000 deaths per month from malnutrition in order to declare a famine. Which in itself is highly unorthodox to say the least. /6
They've declared famine in a specific area of 17 sq miles! The previous smallest area one was ever declared was 10,000 sq miles of Sudan. One may say, if there's a "famine" in one place but *everyone* in it can be reached in 5 minutes - the issue must be distribution /7
Even with this, there is still no evidence whatsoever that 4000 in Gaza City are starving to death each month, which is where the IPC has given itself leeway: if they can demonstrate that 2 thresholds are met and the 3rd is plausibly met but under-reported, they can declare. /8
The idea of thousands of people starving to death in a conflict and it being under reported is perhaps plausible in other conflicts, but in THIS one where every single possible photo or video is taken and shared, it's simply not believable. /9
We can all observe that the use of sick people with degenerative diseases as examples of starvation point to a reality that there is simply not a large number of people starving to death. We all know what that looks like. /10
My take on this is that the UN itself is at war with Israel. It is doing everything it can to accuse Israel of every possible evil, and it's own satellites and humanitarian agencies are being bended as weapons. /11
Many people are suffering in Gaza, but I also believe the UN has sat down and worked out how they could bend the truth to pretend there is a famine in Gaza, when there is not. And we all need to worry that our intl organisations and media are playing these games. /end
@skedeschi So, they changed the definition of "famine".